Pacifica's Secret
by Phouka Dragon11
Summary: Pacifica is not like the other Northwests. Behind her eyes hides something much more dangerous, something that needs to be hidden. Is Pacifica really who she appears to be? Or is she a ticking time bomb ready to rip everything apart? (HIATUS)
1. Chapter 1: Northwest Secrets

So this idea came to me randomly during a boring geography class which followed in me fleshing this idea out during the rest of the class. This is the result of this horrifying abomination of an idea. Anyways, enjoy!

* * *

Two young humans were out on a stroll in the forest. The brisk spring air still bit harshly at their skins, and the plants around began to unfold, the snow and ice dripping off their unfurling leaves. The hibernating animals were beginning to wake after the winter, their eyes twinkling in their burrows and nests. Those many eyes followed the two strolling humans as they made their way across the forest.

Their hands were linked, fingers filling the holes between fingers, the two golden rings glistening in the low sunrise sun. They walked stride by stride, mesmerised by each other, their hearts beating fast with the many emotions that were flowing through them. Good emotions they were, for this couple were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend, but husband and wife. For quite some time too, this would be the second year after their wedding day, yet it still seemed like yesterday when those bells rang, when the vows were spoken, and when their families had cheered.

Preston Northwest led his beloved through the dank forest, careful to not get her expensive shoes soaked through thanks to the thawing snow. Priscilla was a dainty creature, and stepped lightly across any surface, whether it be carpet, hard polished floor or the uneven terrain of the surrounding forest. Every time she moved, she looked as if she were dancing and many would look on in envy, admiration or jealousy.

Barely any sound circled in the forest at this time, the animals still lazily waking up from their slumber and insects still deeply asleep. The only noises now were the crunching of thawing snow, the breathing of the Northwests and the whisper of the breeze between the pines.

However despite the awe they were travelling through, Priscilla Northwest also had many negative emotions merging with her happy ones. They had returned from a rich party in Europe a mere month ago, and were greeted with some unwelcome news, at least in their eyes.

On a massive billboard, there was plastered an old advert for Bud's Auto, back from summer time that same year. The words were written in a massive blue font with two people on the front, one smiling, and the other squinting and looking on the verge of a tantrum. However the original writing was hard, yet still possible, to read beneath the many graffiti drawn over it.

 _JUST HAD A BABY SALE_

Priscilla's heart broke in two when she saw that advert. Even the Gleefuls managed to have a child. Why could everyone get something that she was biologically impossible to conceive?

The news of Priscilla being barren was kept strictly inside the manor. How would the people react if they realised that the only offspring of the Northwest family had married an infertile woman, unable to produce a child to carry on the Northwest legacy?

It was the very reason the married couple had gone for a walk in the woods in the first place. To clear their minds.

Preston had gone against his family's wishes for him to get divorced with the unwanted girl and stayed with her. At least Preston's genuine love for Priscilla managed to calm the woman down. She didn't take the richest man's love for granted, and greatly loved him back in return, but it didn't prevent her from having doubts about his family.

So deeper they went into the forest, away from all the prying eyes of the other townsfolk. To them, home was not only the ridiculously massive mansion but also the town and forest around it, and they loved it there.

"Preston," Priscilla broke the long silence between them and stared her love in the eye. "Promise me you'll never leave me."

She somehow knew he was thinking about the same thing as her. He also seemed shaken up after hearing the news of Gideon Gleeful's birth.

At first Preston looked appalled that she would even say such a thing, but then his face melted into a calm and reassuring glare.

"My darling," he addressed to her, taking her smooth hands in his own. "Have you forgotten our vows? The promise we made that very day we were linked? We promised each other that we will stay together until death do us part." Seriousness was in his eyes, but also those embers that Priscilla had grown to love over their long relationship. "Believe me, there is no-one else quite like you, not here, or anywhere in the world. I don't care that my family wants me to remarry because of your condition. I will not leave you. You may not be my first love, but you are my last."

His words were like melted chocolate, and Priscilla found herself calming down from her anxiety. She placed his warm hands on her cheeks against the bitter spring air, and their foreheads touched to seal their everlasting love for each other, and inched closer.

But they were interrupted by a sudden noise. The pair were so startled that they broke free from their bond and looked towards where the loud noise had come from.

It was not a noise that one would likely hear in a forest, for it was not a cry of a waking animal.

But instead the cry of a human baby.

It was not just bubbling and bawling like a little baby usually does either, but rather- it was screaming. Shrieking and wailing so the few evergreen birds flapped off their branches to get away from the terrible noise. But for every tone of human that the cry sounded, there was always an undertone of noise that a human baby could never and should never make. Only a while after listening to the outburst the cry became unbearable to listen to. It was close too, like it came from the surrounding, frosty blackberry bushes.

Preston's hands darted to his ears to shut out the horrible noise, but strangely his wife was drawn to it like metal to a magnet. She brushed her pale brown hair out of her ears and listened to determine where exactly the noise was coming from. Her sense of hearing lead her to the one blackberry bush that despite the harsh winter the world had just bore, it was in full bloom, with fruits as big as tangerines. The crying was coming from its branches.

Priscilla strangely no longer cared about the designer warm clothes she wore, and knelt on the ground to get level with the bush. Carefully, her fingers wrapped around the thorny vines and opened them to peak inside.

She had expected the thing she saw, but it still came as a massive shock to her. In the bush, tangled in the thorns lay a human baby, wrapped in cloth the colour of the sun. Tears stained its cheeks as it wailed and made that horrible noise, begging for someone to find it.

And someone finally did.

At the sight, Priscilla's heart melted into a mushy pile of goo, and a frail gasp escaped her massive lips.

"Preston dear, there's a baby in the bush," she told him quietly.

Her dear kelt beside her and looked into the bush. His face moulded into shocked surprise and horror.

"It's been abandoned," he breathed, watching the baby struggle in the bush. "Who had done this?"

The woman commanded him to hold the vines out of the way as she reached into the bush, the thorns raking at her clothes and at her hair. The baby paused in its crying to give Priscilla a confused look, before it returned to its bawling.

"Shh, little one," she spoke softly, her delicate hands beginning to untangle the plant's vines from the small child, slowly and carefully as to not harm the frail baby with the sharp thorns of the blackberry bush. "It's okay, I'll get you out of here."

The little baby stopped its screaming and instead decided to coo and babble in its cute baby voice, stretching up its tiny hands at hers, giggling at her. Priscilla smiled warmly at it, but her smile faded once she looked into the baby's eyes.

They weren't human. At all. There was no white in its eyes, all the colour of shiny amber stones, so clear and detailed that Priscilla could see every muscle in the iris, as well as her own reflection in them. Even the pupil was nowhere near human. Human eyes had circular pupils with a ring of colour around them. However this child's pupils resembled that of a cat's, vertical slits that despite their inhumanity, seemed to smile back at Priscilla.

The little child noticed her scared expression, and somehow understood. A small child should not be able to understand such expressions. It closed its strange eyes and reopened them a moment later. Gone were the amber cat eyes, replaced with normal human eyes, with round pupils and irises the exact colour of a morning sky.

Priscilla froze as she recognised her own eyes, she had gazed into them enough times through the mirror when she was applying makeup. Though her hesitation only lasted a few moments, and she lovingly took the tiny human baby into her welcoming arms and backed out of the bush. It giggled louder, the tiny hands poking at her face tenderly.

"Good heavens," Preston exclaimed once Priscilla emerged from the bush, holding the baby close to her chest. She showed him the child as if she had just gave it life in the hospital. It giggled and poked Preston in the bottom lip so he flinched.

"Who had left it here?" he asked rhetorically, but his voice only made the little child laugh in a high-pitched baby laugh. "Has it just been abandoned?"

"I think so..." Priscilla mumbled, cradling the child closer in her arms. Her face suddenly lit up with an idea. "Preston, maybe this is the answer to our prayers for us having a child?"

* * *

Everyone had finally gone home. The servants were away and busy cleaning up the mess left by the commoners, while the last sleeping guests were woken up and rushed home. Once again the Northwest Manor had gone back to normal after the party, which had turned out more eventful than anyone could ever imagine.

On the third floor, a small human girl sat at the window, head propped up on a curled fist as she watched the rain fall and dribble down the glass with fake interest. In reality, the pretty blonde was not paying attention to the water dripping down the window, but instead she was really lost in thought. Memories of yesterday's party played themselves in her mind's eye like a mini movie, and a small smile was raised on her face. She was a hero! She saved everyone from that lumberjack ghost! Pride wasn't the only emotion which was buzzing around inside her, but relief and happiness. She had made two great friends during this party, and it was with the two she had never thought she would ever befriend.

First it was Dipper Pines, who had helped her overcome her personal issues and helped her save the day. Then came his a-dork-able twin sister, Mabel Pines, who treated Pacifica as if she had always been her best friend. The Pines had welcomed her with open arms, and offered her something that she could never buy with money.

Friendship.

It sounded sappy, but that little moment from the long night was something Pacifica swore to remember for the rest of her entire life.

"Pacifica."

The girl snapped out of her daydream and stood to attention before her mother. Blue eyes met blue eyes, and Pacifica's throat suddenly became dry. Would her mother yell at her for disobeying her father's wishes?

"Yes mother?" she acknowledged her mother and bowed her head. She must be assertive, yes, but Pacifica still had the utmost respect for her parents, and she still loved them with all her heart. They loved her, they raised her. She was their daughter... was she not?

"Sit down with me," her mother sat down at the window and glanced outside. Her tone wasn't challenging, but calm. Pacifica hardly hesitated as she sat down obediently next to the tall light brunette. Though it was forced, her stress affecting her body movements. Priscilla Northwest noticed, and put a slender arm around her daughter's shoulder. "Calm down Pacifica, why are you so tense?"

A sigh escaped Pacifica's lips. "Aren't you going to yell at me for letting the townsfolk in?"

To her surprise, Priscilla shook her head, causing her long hair to follow her movements like wisps of magic. There was no anger in her eyes or shown on her face, but instead a reassuring smile.

At this, Pacifica rested her head on Priscilla's shoulder, though the gesture came stiffly.

"Your father has changed since I first met him," her mother told her. "He's became more obsessed with carrying on the Northwest reputation, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love me or that he doesn't love you." Her arms embraced her daughter closer, and Pacifica could now feel her slow heartbeat against her body. "I think you did the right thing yesterday. I wish I could've done the same thing as you did. You're the bravest girl I know Pacifica, and I was just waiting for you to grow assertive. I just wanted you to know that I'm so proud of you."

So the girl melted into the hug and curled her arms around her mother, drinking in her warmth and wishing that this rare moment, where her mother's open love was easy to grasp, would last forever.

But like all good things, this one came to an end too soon.

An unpleasant feeling began to arise in Pacifica's stomach and a few other organs, the awful feeling as if thousands of little needles were being stabbed into them from all directions. Tears flooded her eyes and blurred her vision, before a pulse of energetic agony shot through them and made Pacifica close them swiftly. She choked at the sudden feeling, and a loud noise of complete and utter pain arose from her mouth.

Her shudder made her mother brake apart the hug and look her daughter in the face, her cold hands against Pacifica's now scalding hot cheeks. "Pacifica dear, it's happening again isn't it?"

Her daughter nodded her head quickly, clenching her teeth against the pain. She guessed it was lucky that for the umpteenth time in the row, her condition had activated after the party, not during. That would've been an absolute disaster.

So Priscilla dragged Pacifica to her feet, roughly because at that moment the young girl had become stiff with the burning pain that had now spread to her entire body like some sort of infection. Her blood was on fire, her bones were electrified, her organs poisoned. So Pacifica let herself be blindly led down the familiar ways. Downstairs, through the snaking corridors that Pacifica had learned off by heart. It was engraved into her mind like an ancient river into rock. It was her home, for as long as she had remembered. Now she knew that her mother was taking her to the one place where it would be safe from prying eyes.

"Almost there darling," Priscilla would say, reassuring Pacifica that they would almost be out of sight. But of course Pacifica knew that. Her eyes might have been tightly closed, but somehow she could see perfectly clear. Though the perspective was not from her own head, but from an ominous tapestry that hung on the wall. She could see herself and her mother rushing down the corridors, and she could feel the stitched eye move its cotton pupil to follow the mother and her daughter's movements.

The tapestry was always there, or at least since Pacifica had became a link into the Northwest chain. Her parents haven't bought it, and didn't recall it hanging there at the time of her father's ancestors. It just sort of appeared there, and when taken down it would reappear on the walls. Pacifica was also sure that there were many, or either the one would change wherever it was hanging. Once she had even found it hanging on the wall opposite her bed in her room. To say it was frightening would be an understatement. It was probably one of the butlers thinking it was a funny prank.

"Here we go dear," Priscilla announced, pushing the door open with one hand and leading her inside.

It was this room... Its familiar coldness pushed away the heat that radiated from Pacifica, and calmed down the pain that had started to infect her pale skin. Pacifica gasped in relief, willingly inhaling the freezing air. Her mother, however, began to shiver and snuggled into her expensive clothing. Her teeth began to chatter, and she rubbed her arms to get some warmth into them.

"Here we go," she stammered through her chattering teeth, and the sound of a door closing could be heard. "You can let yourself go here."

About time. Any longer and Pacifica would think she would've burst. She took a few steps forwards, and then fell to her knees on the hard, smooth floor, and pressed her cheek against the smooth surface. A flash of bright light emerged from her, and in an instant all the agony melted away as if had never been there at all.

She was finally able to open her eyes again, without any pain. The room came into view before her, and she smiled upon its sight.

The entire room were made of black quartz, a stone which was known to negate magic and negative energy. It was built under the Northwest Mansion, of recent time too. When her parents inherited the mansion, her parents have had an arrangement with someone from the past to built a 'panic-room' that was magic-proof against anything and everything. The room was built before Pacifica looked upon the world with her own eyes, but her mother told her that the man knew his stuff, and that they've let him build a house in the woods in return.

The room was also equipped with only the finest of equipments, a fancy silver mirror, furniture from only the most expensive of wood, a storage of extra food and a supply of medieval weapons incase something went wrong. It also had a supply of entertainment, for both Pacifica and her parents.

"Are you better?" came her mother's voice, except now it came twice as clearer, and Pacifica's eyes set upon her. As usual Priscilla looked unsure at the sight, but reassured herself once she saw that the girl on the floor was okay.

"Yes, I'm okay," Pacifica replied, sitting up and rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. "I guess the rest of my day will be spent down here..."

"Will you manage by yourself?" Priscilla asked, looking up at the door through which they had come. The girl nodded her head and watched her mother leave her be. As the door closed once again, Pacifica stood to her feet and turned to the mirror to look at the creature inside, who stared back at her.

Gone was the bright blonde hair, and gone were the sky-blue eyes. Gone were the designer clothes the colour of plums and gone was the girl the townsfolk thought they knew.

The creature in the mirror was barely human, only just. Sure, it had two legs, two arms, hands, forward pointing eyes, ears and the same shape of body as Pacifica Northwest. The creature had the same face too, but it was there were its similarities ended with the rich girl.

Looking back at her, were not sky-blue eyes, but instead full orange eyes with no white and vertical elongated pupils, like that of some feline. Her usual, short human fangs were replaced with slightly longer, crooked animal fangs, and her whole pale skin had gone to the shade of mocha and the beloved blonde hair had changed to strands of flowing amber. The creature had also changed the wardrobe. Where purple designer clothes were supposed to be, the creature wore an orange tailored tailcoat, completed with black sleeves, gloves, buttons and trousers, and even a bow-tie. Atop its head, sat a tall black top-hat, and it held a long crooked cane in its hands. This creature was horrifying, a monster of the forest, just where her parents had found her entangled in a blackberry bush.

Pacifica stared at the creature in the mirror, and it stared back at her, emotionless. For a moment she narrowed her eyes, and the creature narrowed its eyes too. It copied her every move, shadowing who Pacifica wanted to be. And she hated it.

"You aren't me," she decided and turned away from the creature in the mirror. She indignantly took off her top hat and tossed it to the other side of the room, along with her cane. She didn't want those things, but they seemed tied to her somehow. She had actually tried to get rid of that hat and cane, multiple times, but they had repaired themselves magically and returned to her like an unwanted boomerang.

So today Pacifica would spend regenerating, and honestly it seemed for the best. Keeping a normal human appearance was exhausting, especially when keeping it up for a long time. Pacifica knew how to keep her strange ability behind a facade, after doing it for so many years she was bound to be some good at it, but it didn't mean she still wasn't burnt out after she had kept going for an increasingly long amount of time.

She had never tried to experiment with her peculiarity, since she was human, or at least she wanted to be. Humans didn't have those kinds of power, and shouldn't be able to shift appearances at the flash of light.

Pacifica yawned loudly, her long fangs on show and her sharp inhuman tongue curling as if she were a wild beast ready to hibernate. She had stayed up all night with the party, laughing and dancing and having a good time, and she wasn't just tired thanks to her unwanted condition.

Without further thought, Pacifica lay herself on the soft couch and got herself comfortable against the fabric. She could no longer feel the cold of the panic-room on her skin, if she could even call it such. Her heavy eyelids finally closed and dragged Pacifica into the calling arms of sleep.

* * *

"Where the devil is Pacifica?" Preston growled at his wife. Priscilla looked back at him, startled. _Is he still mad at our daughter?_ she asked herself. The woman looked left and right, to see if the servants and butlers were eavesdropping.

When she had clarification that nobody was near, she leaned towards her husband and in a low voice said: "She's having one of _those_ days dear, she's in the panic-room."

The anger faded instantly from Preston's face, and the man straightened up. "I should've known that her abnormality had something to do with her going against the Northwest legacy," he whispered back to her. Priscilla shuddered, but nodded her head.

"She's doing the best she can Preston," she defended her daughter fiercely. "You know how that our daughter struggles to fit in with us humans, and being under such pressure is bound to inflict some behavioural issues."

Her love sighed and hid his head in his hand. "I was told once what Pacifica was," he told her. "But I can't remember, even if it meant saving our reputation. Someone told me what she was... but I don't recall..." He rubbed his temple while trying his hardest to remember.

Priscilla sighed and rolled her eyes. "Does it really matter what she is?" she asked. "She looks like us, she lives like us, she lives among us. She can reason, she can think. She's our daughter, and that's all that matters."


	2. Chapter 2: Slips in the Past

A pretty blonde-haired child, just what the Northwests needed. The little girl was everything the couple had wanted in a child. Preston would lull her to sleep, and Priscilla would dress her up in only the finest of fashions. The news of her 'birth' spread like wildfire to the town, and even beyond.

Pacifica Northwest became quite known, even though she was one year old and just beginning to string words together. She still walked uneasily, unable to co-ordinate balance, just like any toddler did.

She hobbled towards her mother one day, crying loudly, hardly able to keep herself up onto her feet. Priscilla instantly picked up her daughter and tried to calm her down, but the little girl would not stop crying. It was the same noise she had made when they first found her...

"Shh Pacifica," Priscilla tried to calm her daughter down, clutching her close, aware of the little child fingers clutching her top tightly. "Where does it hurt?"

"Ma..." her little angel sniffed. "Ma..."

A flash of light suddenly blinded Priscilla, and her protective mother's instinct kicked in and she clutched her daughter tighter against the unknown threat. It took her eyes a while to get rid of the effects of temporary blindness, then she realised that Pacifica had stopped crying.

Priscilla looked at her child, yet a shot of fear and adrenalin set her heart down to her feet and she dropped the toddler onto the couch where she was sitting. "Preston!" she screamed in fright upon the sight. Pacifica, or what sat in her place, gave her mother a confused glare on why she was suddenly afraid of her, and she began to coo the words 'ma' at her repeatedly, in the same voice.

Preston busted into the room, and was in for quite a shock. Priscilla had backed up against a wall, clutching her breast while taking slow, steady breaths, while a monster was calling to her in their daughter's voice. Quite frankly, he had no idea what to do.

* * *

Eventually Preston and Priscilla decided that this creature and their adoptive daughter were in fact the same being. They had lay her to sleep in her room, and forbade any butler, servant, cleaner or visitor to even open that locked door. Nobody, not even the most loyal servants, were to know of their daughter's true identity.

Preston had left the manor that night to clear his mind. He should've known way before this that the baby his love and him had found in the forest was not human. Priscilla told him of her peculiar eye-changing ability before this moment, and the girl didn't have a belly button. Was she ever born at all?

He kept to the shadows of the town, but there were not many people around at this time anyway. Just teenagers that lurked in the dark alleyways, not bothering the silence of night that set upon the town like a tender baby's blanket. Where was Preston going? He himself did not know. A spiral of thought had infected his mind, not letting him think straight.

What had they adopted as their own? Was the creature of the forest dangerous? If the public ever found out, what would they do? What would they think? Was the Northwest reputation endangered? Were they right to take that child as their own? Was she dangerous? What was she capable of? Would she go feral? Would she be even capable of normal human speech and normal everyday life? Could she herself carry on the legacy of Northwests? Would she even behave like a human? Would she even want to?

So many questions and not enough answers.

Preston looked up from his feet and his eyes rested on his great grandfather's statue, Nathaniel Northwest, the great founder of Gravity Falls and the reason the Northwests were so highly regarded not just here, but in the entirety of America and even beyond that. He would know what to do if he happened to adopt a creature like Pacifica.

"Nathaniel, what would you do if you had this problem?" he asked the statue, though the only answer he got was silence.

Or so he thought.

The streetlights all popped their lightbulbs at once, and the entire surrounding went from dark colours to complete greyscale. The only thing that remained with any sort of colour was him.

"Who's there?"

* * *

A coughing fit tore Pacifica from the peace of sleep. Her eyelids fluttered with the sudden pain in her insides. Her body had began to give massive, unsteady spasms that send shockwaves of pain through each of her organs. What happened? Was she sick?

Pacifica shifted about her bed, firmly closing her eyes against the dark moonlight, but found that she couldn't get comfortable anymore. Not with the wringing feeling fluttering inside her like a swarm of angry hornets.

Maybe it was her condition acting up again? Pacifica wanted to rid herself of her disguise, but found that her humanity had already melted away. Usually shedding her human form caused the aches to disappear, but still her insides felt like they were being flipped inside out.

The heat began to rise within her like in an oven, causing her to break into a cold sweat. Her hair clung to her face, but Pacifica didn't even try to pry the unnatural orange strands away like she would usually do. Strangely she no longer cared about how her hair looked. Now the primary focus was the worrying amount of discomfort she had dealing with.

Once again Pacifica managed to open her eyes, but her night-vision was blurry and unclear. Reaching out to her scalding hot cheek, Pacifica found that her hand had come back wet with tears. Or so she thought.

She could feel that the liquid was thicker than usual watery tears. Her night-vision did the rest. Were tears colourless, or were they bright scarlet?

That colour...? Tears welled up in Pacifica's eyes, and she let them roll down her cheeks. The liquid coming out of her eyes pit patted onto the pillow like raindrops, leaving behind red spots on the expensive white pillowcase.

 _I'm crying blood!_

In that moment an electrical surge went through her entire being, causing her to sit up, electrified. She tumbled off her bed, and hit the hard floor with a thud. Her stomach gave a howl of nausea, and she couldn't keep it in any longer. She lunged forward, and spewed out a burning liquid which sprawled out onto the floor. The liquid began eating away at the floor like acid; for it was a repulsive mixture of scarlet blood, digestive bile and the remains of whatever Pacifica had to eat.

The discomfort eased a little, but instantly the agony began to rise again, but now it began to spread. The plague of pain also began to infest her mind as well.

Her sight gave in, blinding her, and her hands darted to her head.

 _Please_ , she wanted to say, but no sound came out of her mouth. _Make it stop!_

A painful, bright orange glow began to infect her eyes, causing the welcomed darkness fade into bright citrine orange.

She retched again, and another round of the disgusting amalgamate of inside juices and blood came spewing out her mouth to join the puddle of round one. The revolting taste was now renewed on her tongue, but at least it took the majority of the pain away from her lower organs. She took a few deep breaths into her still hurting lungs, thinking that this was finally over.

Boy how wrong she was.

Just when she thought the worst was over, the pain of her organs had begun to gather at her eyes and brain. Their infection had began to concentrate in her head, a thousand times worse. Pacifica began to breathe unsteadily, her hands getting tangled in her orange-ginger hair. Eventually she couldn't keep her eyes closed any longer.

Pacifica only had to open her eyes a minuscule crack before a wave of power shot them open. Her hands gripped her face tightly, trying to tare the pain away from her head. She could hear a faint crescendo of a crackle coming from her eyes, the glow turning into burning embers. Her eyes were on fire!

 _Argh... my head... it's about to split open... please... stop... please stop it all..._

But the pain just gradually got worse, and worse, and worse, and worse... until...

Pacifica opened her mouth and out came a sound that started as a human scream of complete and utter agony, then melted into a low-pitched, loud roar of a hurt beast. Her hands began to burn, and she tore them away from her face. As she did so, her eyes erupted into an explosion of amber fire and unbearable power.

It went on for a while, but eventually Pacifica managed to slam her tight fists down onto the floor, heavily panting for the cold night air. The flames in her eyes died to little embers, sizzling and smoking. She was shaking from head to toe, the pain dying down as quickly as it came.

Then it was gone. The pain left her suddenly, leaving her be. Her breaths became steady, and her upset organs became happy. Strength seeped back into her like air into a vacuum. Pacifica closed her eyes, and then reopened them. She could see clearly again.

But something must be wrong with her vision. Was everything tinted light blue? As she lifted her head, she gazed at the bright blue shade her room had gotten. Was that her fault?

No, it couldn't be. The light was coming from her window, not herself. Pacifica gathered enough strength to stand, and managed to stumble her way to the window.

Beyond the trees the bright blue glow was emerging, in the direction of the infamous Mystery Shack.

 _The gateway is beginning to open_ , she thought, then caught herself.

What was the gateway? And how did she knew it had begun to open?

* * *

 _NO!_

Pacifica watched in horror as the boy screamed before he stopped moving, his skin turning to wood, branched growing out from him topped with little leaves. A horrified gasp escaped her lips as her eyes darted between the different wooden statues. Some she recognised, but some were foreign to her. Different faces, same expression. Fear.

The ghost began to laugh in his obnoxious, booming laugh, his beard of blue-fire writhing around his head. Anger rose in Pacifica's throat, her stomach beginning to boil. _He's using his powers, why can't I use mine_? she shouted in her head. Her eyes flashed into their usual amber, and her hands began to heat up.

Then she held herself back. She could handle this a different way. What did the ghost say?

 _A Northwest must open the main gate._

She may not be a Northwest by blood, but by adoption. That still counted, right? She could fix her family name, save everyone and prove herself as a true human all in one fell swoop!

So Pacifica stood before the door and changed her eyes back to her favourite blue. Inhaling a deep breath, the girl clutched her fists in preparation.

"HEY UGLY! OVER HERE!" she bellowed, sounding a lot more brave than she actually felt. "You want me to let in the townsfolk? Cause I'll do it! Just change everyone back!"

The ghost's empty, dead eyes set upon her, and widened for a moment, as if he saw through her facade and saw the creature that lurked beneath Pacifica's skin. _No, he's just surprised that a Northwest is stepping up to him,_ she told herself, though she wasn't quite sure. But her setting stakes made her feel a tiny bit more confident.

"You wish to prove yourself?" the ghost challenged her, narrowing his eyes. "Pull that lever and open the grand gate to the town! Fulfil your ancestors promise!"

Pacifica narrowed her eyes and reached for the lever with one hand, not taking her eyes off of the ghost. He seemed to flinch as she did so.

But then, a door opened.

"Pacifica Elise Northwest! Stop this instant!" he father commanded, his head popping out from the hole in the ground like a mushroom, followed by her mother's and their favourite butler. Of course they would hide in the panic-room. It negated negative energy and magical abilities- which is why she always transformed in there- so by that logic the ghost's vengeance would not reach them in there. "We can't let the town see us like this! We have a reputation to uphold!" There was a grim look of determination on his face. "Now come into the panic-room, there's enough mini-sandwiches and oxygen to last you, me and the butler for a week." Then Preston went a tad too far. "We'll eat the butler," he added in a stage-whisper.

Pacifica looked unsurely at them, then at the lever, and then at the shape of Dipper's wooden statue among the many others.

She could try to face off with the ghost, but that would end badly. Pacifica didn't even know her own limits! She could pull the lever and let the townsfolk in, just like the ghost demanded of her. But she could also listen to her father and hide in the panic-room.

 _You're not my real father,_ Pacifica thought to herself, and reached out for the lever again.

"You dare disobey us?" Her father growled, and then pulled out the bell and began to ring it.

It's sound disoriented her, and placed an effect on her mind that shouldn't be present in a normal human brain. It rang round her entire skull, louder than it actually was. Pain shot through her eyes, so she closed them quickly to avoid the hated amber ones showing through. Her form flickered for a second as the bell continued to ring. It was like a dog whistle to her.

 _No, I will not be brought down,_ she decided, regaining control and snapping open her eyes.

This made her father panic. "Dingly dingly! Is this bell broken?"

Pacifica stomped her foot on the ground, and a few cracks appeared on the expensive wooden floor. The force of her stomp made Preston stop ringing the bell and allowed Pacifica to reorientate.

"Our family name is broken!" she yowled, her four-fingered hand reaching out for the lever. "And I'm going to fix it!" she added as she pulled it down with all her might.

It wasn't her biological name she was fixing, but it was hers nonetheless. She had always been Pacifica Northwest, and nothing was going to change that, not species, not blood, not even mentality.

The ghost gasped, and the sound of the door opening echoed throughout the indoor forest. He flew up excitedly to the window, and watched with beaming eyes as the townspeople began to flood in like a living tsunami.

His happiness caused the trees, the leaves, the moss to disappear. The wooden statues melted back into skin and flesh. Pacifica looked among them, and smiled as she saw her new friend taking a deep breath to breathe once again.

The ghost turned back to her, this time with a friendly and fond glare. He was smiling.

"Pacifica, you are not like the other Northwests," said he, and then began to disintegrate. "I feel... lumber... justice..."

With those words, the ghost disappeared into nothingness, and the axe which was lodged into his head fell and smashed into the floor next to where she had stomped. Yet he didn't disappear completely. She could still hear his voice in the wind.

 _You are one of us, Pacifica..._

* * *

Early the next morning, Pacifica emerged from the panic-room once again, no trace of the creature shown in her. Hardly anyone was around at the mansion at this time, not even the servants, who slept in their quarters on the lower levels.

The girl clambered out of the small door and stood to her full height. The two cracks in the floor were still there, the axe still deeply lodged in one of them. She created one of them with just a stomp of her foot!

Looking to the great grandfather clock, Pacifica squinted to see the time, but her human sight wasn't all that splendid. So her blue eyes faded away and Pacifica could now see so much clearer.

3am, no wonder there were not as many people up and about! Pacifica exhaled a cold breath and lowered her gaze from the clock, which stood at the opposite end of the massive main hall. There wasn't anything wrong with using your original sight, right?

Automatically Pacifica's eyes shifted back into their humanity, and suddenly she felt blind. Human sight wasn't the greatest, but she wanted to be one of them. If she was to have her senses limited to fit in, so be it.

Without further ado, Pacifica slithered outside into the morning earth. The pale sky was littered with magenta clouds. Pacifica exhaled a sharp breath, coming out in a puff of white-ish water vapour. This sky... it was so unnatural, and if someone had tried to paint it, nobody would believe it was real. Yet here it was, the gateway to space in its brilliance. A small smile appeared on her face, and an idea popped into her head.

It was cold as she walked across the Northwest grounds, but it was mild, she couldn't really tell. A soft wind picked up and began to blow her hair back away from her face, freshness slapping her in the face. She turned to the well-known pathway, and eventually reached her destination- it was the Northwest mansion, it took some time to walk everywhere.

The horse stables, where the stable-boys were already up and about tending to the many horses. They were one of the few that got up at the crack of dawn to feed, let the horses out and let them drink.

She didn't want to admit it, but Pacifica was attached to every horse there, and every stable-boy. She remembered her reluctance to letting Gideon borrow Excelsior, the white stallion, for his first date with Mabel Pines. But since he mentioned money, Pacifica let him borrow him. Even lending out the horses to the town for Pioneer's Day was a reluctant move.

"Hello miss Pacifica," one of the stable-boys greeted her warmly. Pacifica bobbed a curtsey to him, just as she was taught. The boy turned back to one of the horses, stroking its nose gently.

"How are you?" Pacifica tried to spark up a friendly conversation with him, just like the Pines had shown her. The stable-boy shrugged his shoulders.

"I think it's okay," said he, not taking his eyes off the black stallion he was tending to, him being clearly his favourite. "You know, I think these horses understand us," he began. "I can see you talking to them, and they seem to understand you just fine."

Pacifica blushed lightly in embarrassment. She had always thought she was alone when she spoke with her horses. Evidently not.

"Maybe they do," she agreed with him, forcefully making her face cool down. "Can I take Yarrow out for a ride today?"

"I dunno, can you?" the stable-boy joked. He chuckled in an annoying high-pitched laugh, and Pacifica couldn't help back a flash of irritation go through her.

 _Don't let your anger get the best of you,_ Dipper's advice rang in her head, and she pushed the irritation away.

"May I take Yarrow out for a ride today?" Pacifica corrected herself as the stable-boy stopped laughing at her.

"Of course," was his reply. "I'll get her ready." But Pacifica stopped him.

"I don't need gear," she decided, much to the stable-boy's surprise, but he didn't object. He knew his boundaries if he wanted to keep his well-paid job. Wordlessly he showed Pacifica where Yarrow was today, and he opened the stall door.

Yarrow was a still-young, tall mare the colour of mud with a stupid-looking white blaze down her face, which made her look silly at best. Pacifica hadn't rode upon her back in quite some time, and she guessed it was time to change that fact.

"I'll be back before you know it," Pacifica promised the stable-boy, heaving herself up onto the mare's bare back. And with those words they were off.

Both Pacifica and the horses preferred to ride without saddles, bridles and the such. They were free that way, and had no limits. Pacifica's hands tangled themselves around Yarrow's silky pale brown mane and led her on, Yarrow's hooves continually clopping on the pavement as they swiftly made their way down to the town in a steady canter.

As expected, there was nobody around town at this early a time. Who in their right mind would be?

The Northwest Manor could be seen clearly from here, and Pacifica gazed up at it with a firm, proud glare. She was part of that family, high standards and a great reputation defined them. Her hand instantly flicked her blonde hair away from her face and behind her shoulder in a sassy manner, as she was used to doing. Should anyone see her, they would gaze upon her in awe and envy.

And the town... it was also a friendly sight to look upon. She knew every inch of it, every building, every house and every alleyway. To Pacifica, it was home away from home.

Pulling Yarrow to a gradual stop, Pacifica lifted her gaze to stare at her great-great grandfather's statue. Nathaniel Northwest, the great founder of her beloved town. Or so she thought.

The documents Dipper had given her had hit the Northwest family right in the pride. Nathaniel Northwest didn't found Gravity Falls? He was only covering up for a sad excuse for a human being and a failure of an American President? What more shame could such a proud family bare? They had burned the documents, and buried the ashes deep in the woods. That way nobody could find them and learn of the horrifying truth. Pacifica did not want to think about what would happen if the public ever found out. Only two other people knew, to her knowledge, and those were the Pines twins. But strangely, Pacifica trusted them to keep their mouths shut on that topic. They wouldn't ruin someone's life out of frustrated revenge or pure spite, would they?

"Did you really have to establish our family as frauds?" Pacifica whispered to the statue, who didn't even look at her and continued to gaze up at the sky in magnificence. "You ruined those townsfolk's dreams by keeping them out y'know."

Nathaniel didn't respond to her. However Pacifica narrowed her eyes at him, offended.

"Were you even what I was told you were?" she asked again. "Or were you just like my father back at the party?"

Still no response.

Pacifica spat at him, then caught herself. Did she just spit at her great-great grandfather?

Her hands grasped her head as Pacifica tried to collect her thoughts. Since that party Pacifica had began to loose herself. Rebelling against her father's orders, making friends with their kind, spitting at the man she owed it all to? What was thinking?

Yarrow whinnied at her in concern, and the girl atop her back took her hands away from her head and patted the mare's neck gently. "I'm fine Yarrow, just having a minor external crisis," Pacifica assured her steed, but Yarrow didn't look convinced. The horse made a sound of displeasement, and pawed the ground with her hoof in impatience. "Alright! Alright! We're going."

So Yarrow and Pacifica set away from the town centre, and along the road which lead to the outskirts of town. For a while the road was empty, with only the girl and the horse cantering along the twisting tar between the forest.

Then it happened. A lone car appeared in the distance, headlights still on in the dim morning light. With no problem it caught up to the travelling two, its driver hidden behind the glass. Pacifica guided Yarrow to the side of the road with her knees alone, hoping the car would pass, but the vehicle followed their movements. Pacifica looked behind her, and for that split second she could see the driver behind the glass. He was petrified, stoned eyes formed into wide circles of panic. His mouth was opened in a scream Pacifica could not hear, and without context it would've looked like the car was swallowing its driver whole.

Nanoseconds passed, and the collision of the car with horse made a few hundred early birds lift off their branches to find somewhere which was not so loud. Pacifica screamed as she felt herself being flung from her steed's back, and Yarrow yowled loudly in a neigh of pain and an unbearable noise tore through, punctuated by the shrill screech of car wheels. The horse and girl hit the hard concrete like a stone being flung at a wall. A string of pain went through Pacifica's body as she lay there for a moment. Was she going to die?

A few beats of heart beat, and any and all wounds on Pacifica's body flared up, the flesh pulling itself back together painfully, skin growing over the bare flesh. Soon Pacifica's body had healed itself faster than any human body should've done, no sign of damage left. It was like Pacifica was never hurt at all.

The same couldn't be said for her horse.

"Yarrow!" Pacifica screamed, pushing herself up from the black tarred road. The steed was laying there on the road, the dark blood around her gleaming like silver in the dim morning light. Her chest was rising up and down, and each breath sounded like air being sucked into a faulty vacuum cleaner. The horse was stretched out, laying there motionless. Roadkill.

"Yarrow! Yarrow can you hear me?"

The mare yowled out in pain, her eyes widened at her. Her noise made Pacifica's insides twist with an awful sense of sadness. Time was running out, Yarrow's breaths came shallower, and shallower.

In that moment, power surged through Pacifica's body. She tried to suppress it, but the sight of the brown mare helpless before her made her rethink. She needed to help her. Without more hesitation, Pacifica placed her hands onto the horse's flank, and felt her heat slowly fade from her body. Pacifica let herself go, muttering a quick prayer under her breath that her monster identity somehow had the power to heal. A few moments passed, nothing happened. The girl began to panic, and focused on a surge deep inside her mind.

The veins in her hands began to glow with a cold white light, gathering at her fingertips. The process was exhausting, but Pacifica pushed onward. She'd do it for her. She'd do it for Yarrow.

Finally Pacifica's neglected powers came into play, for the first time in her life. It took her a while to focus the power, in a way that felt right. All her thoughts had to be concentrated onto letting her might out the tips of her fingers.

Minutes passed, and eventually Pacifica's concentration was broken by the sound of happy neighing. Her eyes had opened suddenly, for she was not even aware of closing them in the first place. Her Yarrow was alright, breathing and strong, no sign of blood on her body, at least not anymore. In that instant Pacifica's heart filled with relieved happiness and a slight hint of pride. She had done it! The veins in her hands had stopped their glow, and returned to their usual shade of morning coffee.

 _Wait... that colour...?_

Pacifica looked at herself, and a flash of panic went through her. Her true form had shown!

The instant reaction was to change, and she felt the security of her disguise wash over her, embracing her in its comforting guarantee of safety.

Then she realised that the driver that had hit them had dove away.

In no time at all Yarrow was back on all four hooves, strength returned to the gleaming muscles under her muddy brown pelt. Pacifica was once again up on her back, and they were both galloping down their favourite way.

But the 'human' couldn't focus on the ride anymore. Her thoughts had drifted to her powers.

So she did possess the ability to bring someone back from the brink of death. What else could she do?

No, Pacifica stopped herself. You are a human, humans don't magically heal horses, nor themselves. They don't speak to animals like you do. Don't think that way.

So the thought was once again shelved. But it didn't do harm to wonder, right?


	3. Chapter 3: Abandoned Society

"Can you get her back to the stables?"

"Of course miss Northwest."

Pacifica watched the stable-boy take Yarrow away, and listened to her funny neighing. She was calling back to her, thanking her rider for everything she had done for her. Heart glowing, Pacifica realised that she was smiling, not nobody in particular.

Yarrow was the only being, aside her parents, that knew of her abnormality. When the horse was still a foal, she was attacked by a wolf from the forest. Pacifica, being younger and less experienced in holding back her power, had instantly jumped to the filly's aid and murdered the wolf in cold blood. How? That part escaped her memory, but she still remembered the horrifying corpse of that wolf monster, eyes open, looking but not seeing.

And now Yarrow had experienced her powers a second time, the better side of her powers. Pacifica trusted that mare, and though she would never admit it, Yarrow was her favourite out of all the horses the Northwests owned. She had a funny name. Yarrrrrrow.

Pacifica snapped out of thought, realising that the stableboy and Yarrow had long disappeared from her line of sight. Sighing loudly, Pacifica padded silently to check the mail. Usually the servants gave them all they had been sent, but she was already here, so why bother waiting for someone else to do it for her?

As usual, there was a copy of The Gravity Falls Gossiper, a newspaper in which she was featured more than once. A stack of letters to her parents; adult stuff she'd never really put much attention into. There were letters to her as well, but she'd not bother with them. All of them were love letters from other rich boys across the country, asking for her to be their girlfriend. The first few she opened, but they were sickening, so eventually she just cast them aside like the meaningless trash they were.

However one letter stood out among the rest. While those sappy ones were adorned with the richest, blackest ink and seals of wax, this one was nothing like them. Not a drop of wax infested this envelope, which in itself was thick with moisture and yellow at the edges. This was an envelope that none of the rich boys would ever dare to send.

It was addressed to her, in the scrawniest writing Pacifica had ever seen. And her name was spelt wrong, with an s and a k instead of the c's, so now it spelt Pasifika Northwest.

Intrigued, Pacifica placed the other letters back in the mailbox and kept the strange, scrawny one for herself. She needed to open it away from prying eyes. Her parents need not know of this. So she went behind the shaded glen, away from anyone who might be watching.

This was probably the first time she was excited to touch something this rotten. Her delicate fingers carefully unsealed the messy envelope and took out the piece of slightly crumpled paper, folded unevenly and then re-folded to be neater.

This definitely wasn't a love letter sent by billionaires.

So Pacifica opened the letter, and read every single word.

 _Hi Pasifika!_

 _I know us being friends and all is still pretty new, but you're invited over to ours for a sleepover party! I'm so excited! Candy and Grenda aren't free tonight, so it'll just have to be you and me. It's my first sleepover this week, and I'd love to have you over! Dipper doesn't really want me to host more sleepovers after what happened last time with that body-switching carpet and junk, but he'd be happy to see you!_

 _Don't worry! I promise there's no body-switching carpets or ghosts that turn people into wood! The Mystery Shack's not haunted! I think. But please come over! It's okay if you can't! I can take a 'no', I'm not that midget Gideon._

 _Party starts five o'clock sharp! That is if you want to be there! I really hope you do!_

 _Love, Mabel!_

 _P.S You know it's at the Mystery Shack!_

 _P.S.S Prepare for a wild night!_

 _P.S.S.S That is how you spell your name, right?_

 _P.S.S.S.S I like repeating P.S_

Twice, thrice Pacifica reread the letter, clutching onto every word written in Mabel's barely readable chicken-scratch writing. Once again her whole body tensed with anticipation, goosebumps appearing on her arms, or maybe it was the harsh wind that picked up. Mabel was willing to have a fresh start, after all that Pacifica had done to her and her twin brother. There was goodness in her head and kindness in her heart. Maybe she had thought too lowly of them after all?

What time was it? Pacifica raised her eyes to the window of the manor, and her useless human vision could not see the clock behind the glass on the fourth floor. Sighing in defeat, the girl shifted her eyes once again to see, and was beyond pleased to see that it was already noon. She'd loose track of time while on horseback.

She was woman. She was strong. She was as independent as the land she stepped on. She didn't have to ask for her parent's permission anymore. Besides, avoiding her father's yelling for another day was always welcomed, she could just write them a note.

So Pacifica slipped inside to prepare. She had a few hours before she needed to be at the Mystery Shack, so she had time to prepare.

Packing her bag didn't take much time, it was just the spare clothes, pyjamas and toiletries. And of course a sleeping bag. She changed into her favourite purple designer clothes, and pondered how she should wear her hair. Eventually she decided that she would wear it like she always did, long and flowing behind her like liquid gold.

Now all she had to do was wait. But her calmness was swept away in an instant once she had noticed something familiar in the corner of her eye.

That tapestry was hanging on her wall.

In that instant her whole being froze, eyes fixed to that black and red tapestry, with big ol' Illuminati confirmed eye in the middle, staring her down ceaselessly. She was convinced it wasn't there when she first came in here.

"What are you doing here?" Pacifica snarled at it, just like she had at Nathaniel's statue. Just this time, she expected no response, however got one.

 _Watching you, of course!_

Pacifica shook her head, shaking the voice away from her mind. Did... Did that tapestry just speak with her? Swallowing her spit, the girl tried again.

"Watching me? Why?" she asked it, calmer this time.

 _I've been watching you your whole life, why should this time be any different?_

So that's why the tapestry would teleport randomly from wall to wall, coincidentally there when something was going down. Uneasiness gripped Pacifica's heart.

"But why?"

 _I wanted to see you grow up into the thing you were meant to. I'll admit you got a little sidetracked, but you're getting back on track kid._

A cold shiver went down her spine as the unfamiliar voice rang around her head. Was she hallucinating? Was this just a really bad dream? Or was this real life?

"Who are you?"

 _Someone you'll meet soon. The gateway is beginning to open, just like the prophecies of a billion years foretold, but you probably knew that already._

Huh? Pacifica almost lost her balance. The gateway? Was that relevant to her little episode in the night? Her eyes were now glued to the tapestry, unable to glare at anything else, unblinking.

"The gateway? I... I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. This is all just a bad dream. You're not real, I'm not talking to a tapestry."

 _No, you're not talking. We're communicating telepathically. Couldn't you tell?_

Just then Pacifica realised that her mouth was not moving at all when she spoke. She shook her head in denial and yowled out, this time with her very real voice.

"Get out! I don't want you here! You're not real!"

 _Keep telling yourself that kid. I'll visit you someday, but since you and I both have plans for today, we'll have to hold off our official meeting just a while longer. Remember, reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!_

With that the tapestry disappeared into thin air, probably to some other random wall in the mansion. Pacifica stared at the wall where the tapestry used to be, not knowing how to react to her new discovery. This tapestry, now everything was beginning to unfold. If she had not seen the fiasco with the lumberjack ghost, she would've just brushed this off as a bizarre hallucination. However now, it scared the living daylights out of her.

Grabbing her bag, Pacifica swiftly threw herself out of the manor, gladly getting away from the tapestry's sight.

Her high heels tapped loudly on the pavement as she walked in a quick pace through the town. It would take her a while to get to the Mystery Shack, but if she just travelled on the bring of jogging, she should get there in a while. Her head looked up at the grand clock in the town centre, and this time she didn't need to shift her eyes to see that it was already half past four. Thirty minutes, she should make it in time.

She already knew the way, for she had been to the Mystery Shack a few times before. To the funfair, that party, and of course, the most recent event of going to that shack to ask Dipper for help.

Possibly this time would be her favourite.

As planned, Pacifica arrived at The Mystery Shack five o'clock sharp. She picked up her pace willingly to get to the sinking, shambling shack faster, all thoughts about the ride and the talking tapestry escaped from her mind.

But as she stood on the porch, her hand raised to knock on the door, she paused. Should she really show her face here after all she had done to the twins? Hate can't be undone overnight... but they should start over...

Mabel had announced them officially friends after all.

Pacifica took a deep breath and knocked three times on the door. Instantly she could hear movement inside the house, and a few moments later, the door swung open on its hinges to reveal the brunette, slightly taller than Pacifica was. Her face lightened up once her big brown eyes settled on her guest.

"Pacifica! You're actually here!" Mabel squealed in delight, springing forward to latch herself onto the blonde in a hug. Pacifica shivered, at first confused on what she should do, but then returned the hug somewhat awkwardly. She was still foreign to that sort of thing. "Come in then!" Mabel cheered enthusiastically, releasing Pacifica from her tight grip at last.

It was still awkward to be in the Mystery Shack as a welcomed guest and not a parasitic pest, but Pacifica was determined to wear a smile the entire time she was in here. The wood creaked, a machine below her feet clanged and lightening flashed. She could hear it clearly, see clearly... it was as if her usually human senses were amplified without shifting.

But suddenly a loud beeping noise made Pacifica jump. What was it? Mabel just rolled her eyes and lead her to the kitchen, where Dipper Pines was sitting at the table and working away on some device.

"Hey Dipstick," Mabel greeted her brother while Pacifica smiled and waved at him. The boy looked up from his work, and gave them a cheerful smile.

"Hey girls," he said quickly before dropping his head down again to fumble with some sort of machine. When the girls asked him what he was doing, he shrugged and fixed the pine tree hat atop his head. "I'm making tweaks to my ghost detection device," he explained as Mabel and Pacifica padded up to him to get a closer look. But as they did so, the machine wailed louder, just like an alarm clock on a Monday morning.

"What is it?" Pacifica asked curiously.

Dipper shrugged again. "I've programmed it to go off when a powerful supernatural creature is near," he replied effortlessly. "But damn thing's broken. It started to go off for no odd reason and now it won't stop!"

Thankfully the twins didn't notice Pacifica flinch and back away slightly. Dipper's words became an indecipherable blur and Mabel's laugh sounded distant, as if a million miles away through a tunnel. Her heart had began to beat faster against her chest as she suddenly felt threatened. What if they found out about her dark secret? What would they do to her? What would they think and-

"C'mon Pacifica, let's leave Dipper to his nerdness!" Mabel giggled, leading the way upstairs. Although Pacifica was glad to get away from that exposing machine, she still said goodbye to her friend and raced upstairs after Mabel.

* * *

Pacifica barely closed her eyes when they snapped back open. It had been a marvellous slumber party with just the two of them, watching rom coms, talking, jumping on the beds and generally having fun. It had been the best party Pacifica had ever been to, and it was saying a lot. But now, something was off.

The familiar headache had returned to her mind, and her eyes were itching, forcing her to blink away to at least see clearly.

The faded moonlight seeped in through the triangular window, and gave the attic room a pretty silver glow. If Pacifica had not possessed the strange night-vision, it would allow her to see the pale grey silhouette of the furniture around. But such is fate that the rich girl could see her surroundings as clearly as if it were daytime.

The Calling-All-Boys-Pre-Teen-Edition board game was still scattered on the floor, and the beds were all messed up. Next to her lay Mabel, breathing quietly through her nose and clutching her unicorn stuffed plushie, snuggling close to her friend on the wooded floor. Pacifica had lay beside her, and had fallen asleep quite easily. Though now, the pounding headache had returned.

How could it be? She had just regenerated yesterday! Usually it was a whole month's break that separated such events, not mere hours!

Pacifica sat up, her hand darting to her forehead and found that she was sweating, very badly. Her eyes darted down to Mabel, and her worry grew. She couldn't know her deepest, darkest secret. Never.

But for now, she needed at least a little rest.

So Pacifica heaved herself up to her feet, careful not to disturb Mabel under the thin blanket they had covered themselves with, and carefully slipped out of the attic room.

The moment she exited Mabel's room, Pacifica heard a loud clatter of metal, and the pain in her head seared. The gateway...

The gateway...? What was it? Somehow she knew what it was named, without knowing what it actually was. But either way, it was here, below her feet. And she was convinced that this strange gateway had something to do with her headache.

Pacifica shook herself like a wet animal, and tip toed down the corridor to the bathroom, where she locked the door and breathed silently in relief. In an instant her humanity melted away in a bright flash.

In an instant her headache vanished, and Pacifica turned to glare into the mirror, where the creature stared back at her. Oh geez... this was bad. She was stuck in the Mystery Shack, as a beast of the forest. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

For a while Pacifica sat on the closed toilet lid, her gloved hands running through her now amber hair, trying to regain her strength to at least maintain her human disguise for a couple of hours until all this was over. But why would she want it to be?

What would Mabel think if she left early?

But Pacifica had other ideas. Her cat eyes darted to the small digital clock next to the sink, which showed her that it fourteen minutes past midnight. If she could just take a walk out into town for a couple of minutes and then come back, she would sure clear her mind.

So Pacifica once more put on her disguise, and with it the pounding headache returned. Gritting her teeth, the girl carefully placed her feet on the creaking steps, and finally managed to get downstairs. Her hand reached out for the door, and it soundlessly popped open. Perfect.

A strange feeling went through Pacifica's gut, a feeling that told her to stay in the shack and wait out her headache, but the girl ignored it and took a few steps out into the cold night.

In just a few steps, her headache melted away. Already? Pacifica turned back, but once again it seared through her brain.

So the gateway was in the Mystery Shack after all... Just, what was the gateway? And why did she know of something called that vague name?

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Pacifica promised, and turned to run.

The forest around her turned to a blur, her running footsteps echoing round the trees from each side. Cold night air refreshed her lungs, and once again Pacifica felt free, just like on Yarrow's back.

Just like that, Pacifica was once more in the town of Gravity Falls. Her pace slowed down to a jog, and then eventually a walk. Her insides twisted in guilt for leaving in the middle of the night when she should be sleeping soundly at Mabel's side, not out in town in the starlight.

As she reached the museum, Pacifica decided to turn back. Okay, she needed to get back to Mabel's side, where she strangely felt safer.

"Hey little girl," a tiny voice said behind her. Pacifica almost screamed as she turned behind her. But there was nobody behind her. Her heart began to beat faster in fear, and her whole being began to shake. "Well what a surprise to find you here so deep in the night."

That voice! It was the same one the tapestry possessed when she had the conversation with it a few hours before. A low, inhuman growl vibrated at the base of Pacifica's throat, until she realised that was not a human thing to do so she stopped. Her eyes looked all around, and her ears strained to listen.

"Over here little girl," the voice said again, and this time Pacifica could locate where it came from. Her head snapped to her right like a dog's towards a squirrel, and her eyes set upon a strange, yellow-eyed crow.

Its eyes... they weren't bird-like, but golden and cat-like, like Pacifica's were.

"Am I speaking to you?" the girl hesitantly asked, knowing full well how strange she must look to any stray teens that wandered the dark. Anybody would assume that Pacifica was crazy like Old Man McGucket if she spoke to animals.

But the crow flapped its black wings and bowed its head. "Such a shame you must meet me in such a form," it told her. "I wish our first meeting would've gone much smoother, but I was in a hurry."

Pacifica opened her mouth, but realised she had nothing but questions for the black bird, so she shut it again.

"But a crow will have to do for now," the crow went on, ruffling its wings. "An animal is much easier to possess than a human after all, and of course I didn't want to go through the hassle of making a complex deal with a human."

"Wait, you possessed this bird's body?" Pacifica shuddered. "Who even are you?"

"That you will know when we meet officially," the crow promised. "Right now I want to show you something very important." It noticed the blank expression on the girl's face, so it kept speaking. "Relax little girl, time had stopped, for now. You'll be beside Shooting Star soon enough. She will not even realise you were gone. Now come along, there is something I want you to see."

The bird spread its black wings and flapped off its position on the ground, did a lap around Pacifica's head before it flew clumsily towards the museum. The girl hesitated before she followed him in quick step, just now realising that the entirety of the world around her had lost all colour. The fireflies were suspended in the air like little stars, and the town clock prevented its hands from moving. Looked like the crow was telling the truth that time had suspended itself and in turn had gone to sleep.

The crow lead her to the side window, where it landed on the windowsill. It tapped at the wooden rim with its beak, but only managed to poke a hole in it as if it were some woodpecker. It rolled its brilliant golden eyes and lifted one of its funny bird legs.

Click! The window raised and the entry was allowed.

"How did you do that?" Pacifica could not resist asking. The bird gave her an expectant glare.

"Kid, you ain't seen nothing yet," was all it replied with before unfurling its wings and flying through the open window, leaving Pacifica to follow.

She slipped through, and gently padded after the bird as it flapped its wings unrhythmically, just about keeping airborne. Whoever was possessing the helpless creature did not have wings itself. They travelled through those grey corridors, until the bird led Pacifica to an enclosed room, full of eyes.

Instantly Pacifica shuddered from the gaze, feeling their pupils burn into her skin like acid. However the bird flapped up to an eye engraved into triangular stone, and head-butted it with all its might.

The fireplace behind Pacifica opened up, revealing a secret passageway.

How strange. All this time Pacifica thought she knew her town inside and out, yet it still found ways to surprise her. There were things she did not know.

Pacifica crouched to glare into the dark tunnel as the bird hovered lop-sidedly beside her head. "I didn't know this was here. Where does it lead?" she asked it. The bird seemed the shrug and didn't hesitate before flying into it directly. Pacifica had no choice but to follow it.

Her mind drifted back to Mabel, where she would be sleeping alone on the cold wooden floor of the Mystery Shack, where Pacifica had left her. How stupid of her! Friends didn't behave like that! But then Pacifica reassured herself that time had stopped and she would be back long before Mabel even woke up. She had time.

The tunnel opened up, and Pacifica could stand to her feet after crawling through such a narrow tunnel. Next came stairs, with extinguished torches on either side. Pacifica crept silently down them, and tiptoed after her poultry guide. Curtains were closed together, possibly red but it was hard to tell through the greyscale, preventing her from seeing the rest. The crow gave her a smug look before it did a horizontal wave motion with its tiny bird leg, and the curtains drew themselves back.

A soft gasp escaped Pacifica's lips as she saw the temple appear before her. A circular room with many curtains blocking off many termite-like tunnels. There was cultist imagery everywhere, strange statues and glass pipes lined along the walls and ceiling. Age ripped the place apart, but it held its own. The smooth-cut stone was so straight it was unnatural. Something about this place made Pacifica shrink like a threatened animal. How could something this big stay hidden for so long? How had the townsfolk not have discovered it already?

"What is this place?" Pacifica asked again.

The crow landed on her shoulder, gripped her body in its tiny talons and caused Pacifica to flinch. "The Society of the Blind Eye's hideout," it said, shivering. Thankfully the bird didn't answer in vague riddles this time. "Don't worry kid, the Society was disposed of by the Ramirez, Corduroy and the Pines twins."

Pacifica glared at it. "What do you mean- disposed of? They didn't murder them, did they?"

The crow gave a crackling laugh, similar to a cackling laugh of a fairytale's wicked witch. "Funny how that's the first thing your mind jumps to. I'm proud. Though that would've been entertaining to watch-" the crow once again lifted off and flew towards a strange chair and a pedestal, atop which stood an open chest, "-sadly it was not the case. Those four are far too good-natured to drastically hurt another soul." It perched on top of the chest and beckoned her forward with a black, feathered wing.

The girl followed it, and turned to look at the chest. It had two metal rods sticking out of it, as if it were to hold something delicate so that it would not smash. But whatever that something was, it was not here.

"The Pines had took this precious device," the bird crowed dryly. "A memory gun was once housed here. If you were shot by it, you would loose all selected memories, with little to no chance of getting them back."

It noticed that Pacifica had backed away, horrified at this news, so it kept talking. "But that's not what I brought you here for, little girl. I have something much more important to show you."

With that the bird spread its wings and was once again flapping down corridors, the girl following it closely.

 _What does it want to show me?_ Pacifica thought as she picked up her pace. _Why can't it just tell me?_

But the bird wouldn't answer any questions Pacifica tried to ask it. What is your name? Where are we going? How do you know me? What do you want to show me? The only answer Pacifica got was mere silence.

Eventually the corridor ended in a pair off massive doors, where a pipe along the roof went right through. The bird waved its legs once more, and the doors smug open effortlessly.

Dozens of boxes were stacked around this room, filled with strange cylinders. Thousands of those cylinders. My word. And in the distance was a statute like the one in Rio De Janeiro, but smaller and creepier, with a hooded cultist replacing the one in Brazil. There were cylinders at the statue's sides too, except one was missing.

"Memory tubes," the crow growled lowly, rummaging through said memory tubes with its talons. "The Society had been kidnapping people and erasing their memories of the supernatural. If there's anything for me to be genuinely thankful for the Pines about, it's getting rid of these meddling fools. They served no good to anybody, and to be truthful I'm glad that they're gone. Now, where is it?"

The bird's eyes shone complete golden for a moment as it looked around the room. It looked in the direction of the creepy statue and exclaimed "aha!"

Once again Pacifica followed it unsurely. What was it so excited about? Secret societies of mind erasers, memory guns and memory tubes, golden-eyed crows; none of it made any sense. Perhaps this was another wild dream of Pacifica's.

"Oh I assure you this is not a dream," the crow grumbled, somehow knowing what was going around in the blonde's mind, making her shudder once more. "This is very much real. Trust me, if it wasn't for these hooded maniacs none of this would be happening now. Fate had decided to challenge me, and prevented me from getting to you twice before. Now she cannot stop me."

Pacifica didn't even have time to object or ask any questions, an alarm had gone off once the bird picked up a select memory tube from the stands at the statue's sides. It sighed with annoyance and flapped its wings and commanded the alarm to turn off. And by some magic, the loud sound was no more.

So the crow flapped down and dropped the cylinder for Pacifica to catch. It was smooth, yet worn away by time. How long has this tube been here? But then she noticed that there was a name written on the front. She read it, and her heart gave a jolt.

 _Preston Northwest._

"That's my father's name!" she exclaimed, surprised. "Why is this here?"

The bird shook its smooth head, sighing a crow-sigh. "Because it's something very important that the Blind Eye wanted to keep to themselves- selfish creeps. But now it's about time you knew the truth."

The truth...? What was this bird on about?

It showed her a strange device in the corner, which looked like a tv. There was a slot before it, presumably where the memory tubes were to be put in. Pacifica hesitated before she placed it down, and the golden clasps shut around it, and a green eye with a cross before it appeared on the screen. The crow sat on her shoulder, folding its wings and getting comfortable to watch the coming show.

The screen flickered, and on the screen appeared the image of Preston Northwest, strapped to that strange chair back in the main room. Pacifica gasped silently, but kept watching.

"Tell us Preston, what is it that you have seen?" said an unfamiliar voice, belonging to someone off-screen. Her father looked startled that he had been dragged to this unfamiliar place, and had been given a sudden questionnaire from these unfamiliar people.

"Do you really think I'm going to tell you?" he fought, struggling against his binds. "What goes around with the Northwest family is not your business!"

He was fighting. Her father was not the passive capitalist everyone thought he was. A flash of pride went through the girl. He was not as bad in the core as he made himself out to be.

"Speak!" shouted many voices around at once, however Preston still held his ground.

"It is none of your concern!" he said clearly, raising his head high so that whoever had captured him knew he was not afraid. "Now, if you do not let me go, I will sue each and every one of you!"

But as he said so, he suddenly stiffed and yowled out in agony, his hair standing on end. The sight of her father being electrocuted made Pacifica wince and angry. How dare they treat her father like that? What the crow said about the Society was right. They were monsters.

"Tell us!" screeched the multiple voices, coming from every direction at once, the electrocution stopped, and Preston was allowed to take a few gasps for breath. The fight in his dark eyes was gone, and the pride Pacifica felt melted away in an instant once she realised that he had given in.

"My wife and I had adopted a child recently," he began, voice weak. "A baby from the woods. She isn't human, yet we didn't know what she is." He took a deep breath to get rid of the aftermath of the electrical shock. "She can change the way she looks, and from what little we know of her as of now is that she's getting stronger."

Pacifica flinched at her personal mention, but forced herself to keep watching.

Preston shook his head wearily. "I was visited by a demon just a few moments ago," continued he. "He said that he could tell me what Pacifica was, but only if I promised to tell her once she was old enough to understand. So I accepted."

Pacifica's eyes darted to the bird on her shoulder, and now couldn't help the feeling of fear that crept up within her at just the mere knowledge that a demon was sitting there, in the body of a black crow. The crow felt her gaze and barked at her to keep watching.

"He told me that my daughter was not a human, but a demon," Preston's voice deepened with reluctance, but he reminded himself of the electrical shock and swiftly carried on. "He said she was the last living fragment on his own dimension beside himself, and that because she was grown and developed in this dimension her appearance altered to look more like the dominant species this dimension had to offer. He had said she will grow more powerful with age, and when she reaches the age of twelve her power will be at its breaking point, and it will only grow more powerful from there. That's all he told me."

The video cut off, leaving only awkward and eerie silence.

Pacifica's mind had gone blank, looking forward at the static on the television screen, looking but not seeing. Her father's words rang around in her head, not letting her process them, or even believe them. It couldn't be true... After all these years of promising herself that she was human, that she was one of them, all she turned out was a mere beast of the forest. And not just any supernatural being: a demon, just like Dipper's device had sensed. It would explain all the power surges, the ability to talk to animals, appearance-shifting, the abilities to heal... it all came together.

She remembered Dipper's journal, as he flicked through the pages. One page stayed in her mind. That one-eyed triangle, with the word "DEMON" written all over it. From what Pacifica knew of that journal, it contained information on how to battle and beat magical creatures. And she was one of them.

Her twelfth year had come to pass last winter, and true to her father's words she had began to loose control faster, get tired out faster, let her unholy magic slip from her control. She didn't even need to summon some sort of command or perform some ritual to heal herself. That's why Pacifica had no cuts, acne or scars, it just became automatic. And that was bad. Humans didn't heal themselves in the blink of an eye. Humans didn't talk to animals. Humans didn't change their appearance in the flash of light.

Humans weren't supernatural creatures.

Her father was supposed to tell her. She was supposed to know way before now. Just that this memory was stolen from Preston, and she never got to know.

But did she want to know? Was it better to know and be mortified, or was it better to not know and be happy?

"Now he has fulfilled his end of the deal, in a way," said the crow. Among all this, Pacifica forgot it was there. "You know what you are now, which will make our next meeting a lot easier and-"

The bird didn't get to finish. Pacifica had grabbed it by its frail feathered wing and threw it as far as she could away from her. She didn't want the demon to be anywhere near her. Dipper had told her how dangerous demons could be. From what the Pines boy had told her that the only known demon was an insanely powerful creature with no limits. Mabel put in that he had hurt their great uncle and hurt her twin brother.

This was a dangerous creature, and Pacifica wanted it nowhere near her. She would, if she could, tare her own self from herself. She didn't want herself to be close to herself.

The crow tumbled through the air, crashing into a box of memory tubes with a loud 'crah!' noise. It picked itself up, breathing heavily through an open beak, golden eyes narrowed, but softened once it realised that the girl was trembling in her slippers.

"Why are you so afraid of our kind?" it asked, folding its wings by its sides and gave her a calm gaze, trying to calm down the girl. "It's not like we are given life and instantly we are decided as evil creatures."

But Pacifica didn't want to listen to what the bird had to say. "I can't be one of you!" she gasped at him, her big blue eyes trembled and melted away into the amber cat eyes that lingered behind her humanity. Those supernatural- correction: demon eyes of hers began to tear up as the corners of her upper lip lifted in angry sadness. "I don't want to be! I'm human, I always have been!"

The bird sighed loudly and shook its head, just as if it was a parent explaining something to a stubborn-minded child throwing a tantrum.

"You can't defy biology, little girl," said the demon controlling the bird's body. "You've always been a demon. You've always been one of us."

"I wasn't a demon! I'm not a demon! I'll never be a demon!" Pacifica wailed, two streaming tear tracks running down her face now.

But in her fearful fury, Pacifica had let instinct take over her words. Humans don't normally speak in past, present and future all at once, but a certain supernatural creature did.

"But you were, you are, and you will be," the bird finished for her. "Face it kid, you were, are, and will be a demon no matter what you tell yourself. I've been watching you, and it seems like you've already managed to control some of your abilities."

"Shut up!" Pacifica screamed at it, regretting ever coming out of the Mystery Shack. She should've stayed by Mabel's side, where it was warm and safe. She began to back away slowly, not taking her eyes away from the golden-eyed bird. "Don't come near me again! I'll... I'll..."

"You'll what?" the bird challenged, no longer concerned with keeping the demon child calm since it knew that it was a lost cause. "The only way to settle this is by demon means, little girl. Our next meeting will go smoother than this, I promise you."

In reply Pacifica picked up a memory cylinder with the name "Tad Strange" from the nearest box, and threw it with all her might at the bird. It lifted off in just the nick of time, for the cylinder smashed to little pieces like a glass bottle, a strange colourless liquid oozing out like inside fluids. What a disgusting sight.

"You're fighting, I like it!" the crow crowed, laughing at her. "Now run along young demon, you wouldn't want to keep Shooting Star waiting eagerly for your return."

Then, just as the bird commanded, Pacifica pelted away, running faster than she had ever done. Away from this demon-infested crow, away from the Society of the Blind Eye, away from the greyscale.

Away from the place where memories sleep.

* * *

The fearful girl had reached the Mystery Shack in no time, by that point she had dried off the tears that had run down her face in fear, her eyes stubbornly back to their normal human blue.

The human girl's mind was swimming, not letting her keep a single thought for a moment. This entity, whatever his name was, was after her. Whether his intentions were bad or good, she didn't care. The Northwests had a reputation to not engage with supernaturals despite living next door to them, and that's the exact mentality Pacifica was raised to uphold. She was taught to hide herself, to be scared of herself.

Now she was scared more than ever.

How could she be a demon? It couldn't be! She refused to believe it, with all her heart. Pacifica had always told herself that she was a human being, just like her parents and just like Mabel. She would continue to believe that, strongly. The creature that possessed that poor crow could do nothing to shift her.

Pacifica had decided that it would be best to enter through the gift shop, since she knew for a fact that it was unlocked. It was the way she had ran into the outside a few moments before after all. Her delicate hands gently opened the door and she slipped inside...

... and froze to the sight of Mr. Pines coming out of a secret passageway behind the vending machine.

The old man and the young girl stared at each other in awkward silence for a few moments, and the old man knew he was rumbled. Though what Pacifica was concerned about, was the negative energy flowing out of the tunnel like tsunami waves, disrupting her mind once more.

"Can you shut that door Mr. Pines?" she asked sweetly and innocently. "The gateway's making my head hurt."

The old man looked at her like a dog looks at a high pitched noise. His mouth flopped open, then closed again, then opened once more before he did eventually close the vending machine door. At least the thick machine muted part of the gateway's horrible influence, allowing Pacifica to regain her thoughts once more.

"How did you know what was down there?" Mr. Pines asked her skeptically, narrowing his eyes behind his glasses. "You didn't sneak in behind me did you?"

Pacifica shook her head vigorously. "No Mr. Pines. I... I can just hear it from here."

Stan bit his bottom lip in nervousness, altering his hearing aid to check if the sounds of the gateway were hearable from the top floors, but eventually his focus was shifted bak to Pacifica.

"What do you want to make yourself shut up about this?" he barked, crossing arms in annoyance that he'd been discovered.

Then something unexpected happened.

The moment Stan proposed an exchange, Pacifica's right hand exploded into a burst of unnatural, forest-green fire. It was warm, just like sticking a hand into a bathtub of nicely prepared water, yet the flames did nothing to damage to fragile human skin Pacifica insisted that she disguise herself with.

The girl gasped and grabbed her wrist with her other hand, forcefully making the emerald flames die down. With it, her heart sank right down to the bottom of her soles.

Now Mr. Pines knew her dark secret.

Before the old man could ask any questions, Pacifica quickly proposed a deal. "I-I-I'll keep your secret if you keep mine."

The man gave her a strange glare, but agreed. Once more Pacifica's hand lit itself on fire, but this time she didn't even try to extinguish it. Her flaming hand fitted into Stan's outstretched hand, and shook it while quietly muttering the word "deal".

Once it was done, the green flames died down, and Stan nudged her on to get to bed. Pacifica couldn't be more glad to.

Mabel was still deeply asleep, just like Pacifica had left her. The blonde sighed in relief, kicking off her slippers at once. She took her place beside the brunette, all thoughts of the bird's exposition and her brief encounter with Stan escaped into long term memory as she closed her eyes against the warm of the Pines girl.

Perhaps this was the last she would have to deal with supernaturals aside herself. She hoped so, with all her heart.

Boy how wrong she was.


	4. Chapter 4: Attack of the Chimera

But Pacifica could not sleep for long. Another thing she noticed was that she was beginning to sleep less and less. Did demons need to sleep? Humans did, and Pacifica would still force herself to sleep no matter what. She rubbed her cheek against the wooded floor, feeling the smooth floor against her skin. Stretching her mouth wide, Pacifica yawned and stretched, though she found that she couldn't move far. There was someone next to her.

The brunette was still sleeping next to her, eyes closed smoothly, chest heaving up and down steadily. Pacifica could feel her welcoming warmth, and uncurled so her spine was pressed to Mabel's warm body. Perhaps she should get a little more shut-eye.

"Mmm... Good morning Pacifica," Mabel mumbled, beginning to stir. She yawned loudly and shuffled against Pacifica's body. "Slept well?"

Did she? She hadn't slept most of the night, with the party, going down into the Society's lair and the incident with Stan getting in the way. But she didn't dream while she slept, so technically it was not lying if she only answered for the time for when she was actually asleep. "Yeah."

In reply Mabel yawned again and promptly fell asleep again. So Pacifica reached out for her phone and flicked it open.

 _1 text message from DAD_

"Oh boy," she grumbled and opened the text.

 _Pacifica get home now! You are in so much trouble young lady!_

But the girl closed her phone and pushed it away towards her bag. Maybe it was better if she stayed away from home, at least for the time being.

When her father was angry, he could yell. The punishment would be severe, and Preston usually got creative with his punishments. Pacifica shuddered.

She prodded Mabel in the cheek gently. "Wake up," she whispered softly. "Wake up Mabel!"

"What?" said Mabel, not even opening her eyes. She looked so carefree, if only Pacifica could have so little problems.

"Could I possibly stay with you for a couple of days?" Pacifica asked. "I want to avoid my dad just until he calms down a bit."

Mabel nodded her head. "Yeah, sure. I'd love to have you over." She twitched and rubbed her eyes. Once again she yawned and pushed to sit up. Her hand matted down her fringe which was sticking up stupidly and she stood to her feet.

"Now I'm hungry," she sighed. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Pacifica shrugged her shoulders. "What are we, a married couple? It's your place, you decide."

Both girls snickered and made their way downstairs to the kitchen, where Dipper was already up and making tweaks to his machine. Upon the girl's arrival however, the machine began to wail louder than ever before. Pacifica hesitated, but sat down next to Mabel, pretending that she didn't know why the machine had suddenly set off.

"Stupid thing!" Dipper grumbled, hitting the machine a couple of times with his hand. He noticed the girls and said hi, but his voice was barely hearable past the loud wailing noise. Eventually he just turned the whole thing off and once again the Mystery Shack went quiet.

"Sorry about that," he apologised sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "I just can't seem to crack what's making it go off. Darn thing's probably broken."

 _Not at all, it works just fine,_ Pacifica thought bitterly.

"Morning kids," Stan said as he came in, stretching himself like a massive gorilla. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Pancakes!" Mabel and Dipper cheered while Pacifica nodded her head. She didn't dare to look Mr. Pines in the face after what she had seen in the earlier morning. He too avoided Pacifica and pretended she wasn't there at all.

Would he keep his promise that he wouldn't tell her shameful secret? Pacifica had no intention of telling the twins about the gateway, but would Stan uphold his end of the deal?

"Pacifica will be staying with us for a few days," Mabel announced.

"Must she?" Stan grumbled.

While Dipper and Mabel told him not to be rude, Pacifica understood. As far as Stan was concerned, all weird creatures were dangerous, and Pacifica was one of those creatures. What would he think the motives of a beast disguised as a human be? Negative, with all the 'aliens trying to fit in on earth' genre many movies adopted many people thought that way. But Pacifica was just trying to be human, that was all. Did Stan know that? Of course he didn't.

Stan sighed in defeat. "Fine, she can stay. But she must do chores just like you two." He served the kids the food and got on with preparing another batch.

"I'll manage," Pacifica promised with a nod of her head. She could handle a couple of measly jobs at the Mystery Shack for a couple of days, right? Though by the way Dipper shook his head, she wasn't quite sure.

"But not today!" Mabel interrupted. "I'm taking Pacifica out for a day in the town!"

"Are you?"

"Yeah! Obviously!" The brown-haired girl gave the blonde a wide smile. "Since we're officially friends now it's essential for us to spend some time together!"

So after breakfast Pacifica waited as Mabel pulled over a purple-glittered sweater over her head. Both said warm goodbyes to Stan and Dipper, who were left behind in the kitchen.

* * *

Stan watched them go through the window, nervously watching as his favourite niece went along with that... thing. He didn't like the thought of that creature being alone with Mabel. She might hurt her.

"What's the matter Stan? You're being... morbid," Dipper asked, turning to his machine again. Now that the girls were gone, the machine had stopped wailing. "Huh, how peculiar."

"Dipper I have to tell you something very important," Stan turned to the smaller boy, sitting down next to him. He knew he had promised that creature not to spill her secret, but she didn't have to know. Stan barely kept his promises, after all.

Dipper left his machine at once. "What is it?" he asked, instantly intrigued by Stan's serious tone. Stan only spoke seriously when he was to tell them something important, like when he gave him and Mabel a stern talking to after the after-party zombie apocalypse.

"It's that-" Stan began, but choked on his words. He coughed a couple of times, and tried again, but he gagged on his tongue the moment he wanted to speak.

Dipper hit his back a couple of times, thinking the old man had choked on something, but the great uncle waved him away.

"I'm fine Dipper!" he growled normally. "I can speak alright! I just want to tell you that-"

Once again the words wouldn't come, causing Stan to involuntarily swallow them down. The old man growled in annoyance, but began to panic.

"Try to say something different," Dipper asked him, also growing concerned. Stan scowled at him.

"What else am I meant to say that's of any worth?" he snapped, then stopped. He could speak! Ha! Ha! "Okay, I can speak normally now, what I want to tell you is-" But once again Stan silenced himself.

However Dipper was an observant person, and noticed something strange in the old man's mouth. He asked him to stick his tongue out, and when he reluctantly did, the sight was shocking.

There was a black marking on Stan's tongue, a circular symbol with an ominous-looking eye in the centre. There was writing on the circumference around it, but it was so tiny that Dipper couldn't read it.

"Try say the thing you want to tell me," the boy ordered past his surprise.

Stan tried, but the marking glowed a sickly forest-green and he was forced to retract his words.

"A truth seal," Dipper whispered in horror.

But Stan didn't know what Dipper was talking about. "What's a truth seal?"

For an answer Dipper took out his Journal number 3 and began to flip through its familiar pages. He eventually found the page he was looking for.

On the opposite page of the 'truth teeth', the golden teeth that forced the wearer to tell the truth, there was a passage about different types of truth seal, a curse which forbade someone to tell the truth. Stan shuddered when Dipper read that aloud.

"There's many types of truth seals," said the nerd, trying to distinguish which one it was. "There's the one that witches and warlocks put on their servants so they can't bad-mouth their bosses, but when those activate the mouth stitches itself together, so it definitely isn't a witch or a warlock seal or-"

"Dipper please, keep your nerd-rambling to yourself," Stan sighed. "Can't I just write it down?"

The boy looked slightly disappointed, but got together a piece of scrap-paper and Mabel's furry pen. Stan took it and began to write, but the writing was indecipherable. Usually Stan had very neat handwriting.

Dipper tried his best to read the sentence, but gave up after five minutes when he couldn't. Stan tried to write the something again, but he couldn't write the sentence he wanted to.

"That's worrying," Dipper told his great uncle. "I'll have to study that truth seal before we know how to break it."

But Stan wasn't listening. His concern was growing. Whatever that creature was, it was now alone with Mabel. If she hurt his great niece, she would be sorry.

* * *

But Pacifica didn't want to hurt Mabel. Far from it, actually. The two girls wandered into the town, laughing together as if they had been friends for eternity. The townsfolk greeted them cheerfully, and the girls waved back.

First Mabel dragged Pacifica to Greasy's Diner, where Lazy Susan and the other staff were happy to see them. While Pacifica ordered a little strawberry milkshake, Mabel took at least three minutes to order a custom sundae with all thirty-eight sprinkles the diner had to offer. How the employees managed to get it exactly right was a mystery.

Pacifica had never eaten in Greasy's Diner before, since her parents considered it 'lower class food', but for some reason it wasn't all that bad. Perhaps 'lower class food' wasn't as bad as she was lead to believe. In fact, the small strawberry milkshake was better than most rich food, and soon Pacifica had her second helping.

"It's great, right?" Mabel smiled at her, then froze. "Argh! Brain-freeze!" Pacifica giggled at her.

"Careful, you might kill off your last two brain cells!"

Mabel laughed with her. "Don't worry, I'm taking good care of my two brain cells! They've got a house in Sweater-Town and everything next to the Smile-Dip-Dog's apartment!"

"What? Ha ha!"

Neither of her original two friends were as three-dimensional or as unpredictable as Mabel was. Mostly they just agreed with whatever Pacifica said and laughed when she made another feel awful. They were out-of-towners who only came into Gravity Falls when the Northwests requested them. They would not come until they were called, just like dogs, and it made Pacifica feel horrible.

"And there's the smile-bear traffic," Mabel continued. "And the waffle guards! With big arms!"

"Are you two having a good time?" asked Lazy Susan, noticing the two girls laughing. "And Mabel, dear, how's your great uncle?"

"Oh um," Mabel stalled for an answer. "He's Stan, of course he's fine!"

The lazy-eyed lady nodded her head cheerfully and rushed away to chase a racoon away from under the neighbouring table.

Mabel rolled her eyes and took another bite of her massive sundae. "What do you want to do next?"

Pacifica smiled with the straw to her milkshake still in her mouth. "There's someone I'd like you to meet Mabel."

A light ignited in Mabel's eyes. "Oh em gee who is it?" she asked excitedly, leaning forward and propping herself up with straight arms. Pacifica's shoulders bobbed up and down with laughter.

"She's my best friend," she told Mabel. "Is it alright if we take her along?"

Mabel nodded her head eagerly. "The more the merrier!" said she, sitting back down. "What's her name?"

"You'll see," Pacifica said mysteriously, finishing off her second milkshake with a loud slurping noise while Mabel started to chant-

"My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard-"

They paid for their food and said goodbye to the friendly atmosphere that hung around Greasy's Diner, waving as they went. In Pacifica's eyes, this town was perfect. It was always welcome, and a sweet sight to return to after some grand party elsewhere in the world. She loved those vandalised walls, she loved those filled streets, she loved each and every store and she loved each strange inhabitant. It was her town, and nobody was going to take it away from her.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes against the sun, feeling its warmth on her skin. The gentle breeze pulled gently at her, and she willingly took in the day's beauty.

"I love this place y'know," Mabel said as she jumped down the steps. "I wish I lived here."

Pacifica couldn't agree more. "Are you gonna move here when you're an adult?"

"Yep." Mabel punctuated her answer with a loud popping sound on the 'p'. "Now, who is this friend you want to show me?"

"Of course, this way."

So Pacifica led Mabel back to the Northwest Manor, up along those twisting pathways she knew so well. Seeing the massive dark-wooded mansion again caused Mabel to explode with questions.

"Is you friend staying with you?"

"Always."

"Is she your family?"

"I like to think so."

"An eighth cousin?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Second cousin?"

"Mabel! Shush!"

The gates to the Northwest Manor were massive, as high as a castle gateway itself. The two letters, N and W, stood proudly up on the top. While it was impossible to open them without a lever, Pacifica knew a little secret.

She pressed her finger to her lips to tell Mabel to keep quiet, and Pacifica rammed into the rightmost door followed by three taps in the same plank. Click! The door swung open a little. The brunette gasped, impressed, but Pacifica waved her hand at her.

Opening the big door a bit more, Pacifica made room for a big being to pass. Her eyes flicked over the fancy plaza before the house, the neatly-laid bricks as the flooring pattern, and the clever flower-arrangements that hung from expensive vases. A few peacocks strutted about, gurgling in their strange voices. Pacifica's home.

But Pacifica had no intention of going far into the Northwest grounds. In there she was in danger of her father's anger, and she definitely wasn't risking Mabel hearing that downing despair. So instead the girl cupped her hands around her mouth like a microphone and made a loud noise that sounded half-way between the howl of a wolf and the honking of a goose.

At that moment two things happened.

Mabel made a strange cricket noise in response, thinking Pacifica was playing 'Who-could-make-the-weirdest-noise', but Pacifica once again waved her hand at her. There was the sound of something breaking out of a stall far away, at least what Pacifica could hear. The next there were running hoof-steps on the stone-lined ground.

Then the friend Pacifica was talking about came into view. The tall mustang mare was making her way steadily towards them, her light brown mane and tail billowing behind her like coloured silk, the white blaze on her face so bright it almost glowed. She was a brilliant horse, as were all at the Northwest Stables.

As the mare trotted up towards her, Pacifica outstretched her hand to touch her soft nose, then ran it up her face and into her mane. The horse seemed happy to see her too, for she neighed excitedly and pulled her hair playfully.

"Mabel, this is Yarrow, my faithful steed," Pacifica introduced Mabel to her horse. "Yarrow, this is my new friend, Mabel Pines."

There were sparkles of excitement in Mabel's eyes. "She's beautiful! Almost like a unicorn! Can I?"

Pacifica nodded her head and stepped aside to allow Mabel to pet Yarrow.

"Oh aren't you just the prettiest horse I've ever seen! Is it a she? Of course she is!" Mabel squealed in delight. "I've never seen a horse come to a sound like that! She's really well trained!"

Pacifica shrugged her shoulders. "We kinda grew up together. I mean, I was eight when she was born to Brandy. We've been close ever since."

Mabel counted in her head, which took her a slow moment. "That means she's four! A young adult if I remember correctly how to translate horse age into human age! Ooh she's just brilliant!"

Yarrow neighed out her approval, tossing her mighty head so her mane shook around her head. Pacifica laughed along with her.

"Alright girl, you want to go for a run?" she teased, and the mare whinnied back. It was as if the two could understand each others' language.

Fact was, to Yarrow's furry ears, when Pacifica talked she spoke in horse-tongue, so that the mare could understand what her mistress was saying. As for Pacifica, she could hear human words behind those neighs and whinnies and other animal noises.

Ever since the mare Brandy had given birth to the strong foal, the small filly had always followed the little human girl around, because she neighed and whinnied like she did. So the two could hold entire conversations when nobody was looking, and played with each other as if children of the same herd. They were not merely friends, but sisters in bondage.

So Pacifica jumped up onto the mare's back, and outstretched a hand to her new friend. "Care to come for a ride?"

Her new friend squealed in excitement and reached out to grasp Pacifica's outstretched hand with both of hers. She allowed herself to be hauled up onto the horse's back behind Pacifica, shifting comfortably on the mare's bare back.

"Wait, don't you ride with a saddle?" she asked.

The blonde shook her head. "Yarrow doesn't like saddles, and to be honest, nor do I. The other horses insist to wear saddles because our clothes pull back their fur but Yarrow's strangely unaffected so we just ride bareback."

"I have no idea what you just said!" Mabel giggled madly which caused Pacifica to roll her sky-blue eyes.

"Where to?"

Mabel made a humming noise in the base of her throat to think. "There's a brook in the forest that I like to visit. Maybe we can go there!"

"The brook, yeah, I know where that is," Pacifica nodded. "Yarrow, you know where to go."

The mare neighed loudly in agreement and turned to gallop out of the Northwest grounds. As they made their way down towards the forest, Mabel held on tightly to Pacifica, whooping and cheering. Their hair blew right back as the horse slowed down into a more steady for the newbie canter, swerving into the forest at the earliest opportunity.

The sounds of a woodpecker echoed across the forest as the three girls cantered in. The steady wind blew dappled shadows across the ground, and the small woodland creatures scurried away to allow the broad-shouldered beast to pass. Such a wonderful place this woodland was!

"Look at this! Look at that!" Mabel would say, pointing at a lot of things at once. But thankfully she didn't notice that Pacifica was not steering Yarrow at all. The horse knew her way, and the girl trusted her.

Soon they arrived at their destination, the wondrous brook that Mabel always spoke so fondly of. The girls slipped off the horse's back and watched as she lowered her head to take a drink.

It was a hot day, the sun's rays were baking the earth and not a single cloud danced across the blue sky.

Mabel, as usual, was the first to jump out and fall down onto the grass, feeling the cool grass against her skin. Her brown hair sprawled on the ground, and she stretched like some animal against the plants by the brook.

Rolling her pale blue eyes, Pacifica sat down next to her, kicking off her shoes to dip her feet into the cold stream. Mabel looked up at her.

"It's so pretty here!" she gasped. "I'd never like to leave this place!"

Once more Pacifica rolled her eyes, but this time it was with a warm smile. Perhaps this friendship could work better than her previous ones with humans? She hoped so.

For a couple of minutes the silence was only broken by the sound of rushing water and sounds of the forest along with the quiet talking of the two friends. A cool breeze blew at them, but it was barely noticeable, all while the steed drank from the stream not too far off. If only this moment could last for ever.

But as all good things, this moment too was put to an abrupt end.

A strange sound stirred in the surrounding bushes. Pacifica stiffened and became highly alert, but Mabel seemed unbothered. "It's just the creatures," she said, unconcerned.

Mabel was right. But Pacifica knew that she shouldn't be as unbothered as she was. A dark shape was snaking around them in the plants, making those quiet noises. Low growls, snarls and hisses came from the creature, the sounds of an antagonistic beast about to strike.

"Mabel we need to go, now," Pacifica stuttered, standing reluctantly to her feet. The last thing she wanted was for this beautiful moment to end. Why must it be so?

* * *

Mabel heard the actual panic in Pacifica's voice. Perhaps there really was something in those bushes? So she sat up from her comfortable position on the soft grass and rubbed her eyes.

"Pacifica, you're being paranoid like Dipper," said Mabel, shaking her head. "How dangerous can the animal possibly be? He probably wants to be our friend!"

She followed Pacifica's lead to stand up, but instead she stepped towards the shadow in the bushes. She had made friends with beasts of the forest before, it should be easy as it was always. Mabel was great at making friends with both animals and humans!

"Umm, are you sure? I'm pretty sure growling isn't a sign of friendship," Pacifica pointed out, drawing her blond hair back out of her eyes to see better.

But Mabel waved her away. "Watch and learn Pacifica! I'll show you how it's done!" She gave her friend a wide, toothy grin then turned back to the now stationary creature.

Its six, beady black eyes shined past the cover of the plants, staring threateningly at the girl that was approaching it. Mabel outstretched her hand towards the creature with a calming smile.

"Hey! I'm nobody to be afraid of!" she said cheerfully, allowing the animal to sniff at her fingers. "I'm your new friend!"

Though the animal had something else to say about it. Or rather, to do about it. Before Mabel could leap back, the head of a lion snapped forward out of the bushes, opening its wide jaws so that Mabel could see into the depths of its throat surrounded by insanely sharp teeth. The little girl snatched her hand back, but the animal wasn't going for her hand. The little lion snapped its jaws down onto her shoulder, while a goat head bleated in triumph and the serpent tail hissed along with it loudly.

This was not merely a lion or a manticore like Mabel had encountered before. This was something Dipper's journal had told its readers to avoid at all costs. This was a chimera.

Mabel screamed in terror, struggling against the lion's jaws, but the mythical beast had an iron grip. She could feel warm blood gushing out of the bite wound, staining her purple sweater a dark crimson, and it hurt. It was the alpha of pains, an agony Mabel had never felt before. Tears fell from her eyes, as she beat against the chimera, but it only laughed at the absolute distress of its prey.

Through all the pain and chaos, Mabel barely registered the command barked by a familiar voice.

"Get it!"

Two mud-coloured legs lashed out at the chimera, catching it once in the goat's head, the second time at the shoulder, the third at the lion's head. The three blows were enough for the predator to release its prey and stumble a little back, whimpering and hissing in three different animal voices to get rid of the pain.

The girl lay limply on the ground, stiffly still on her side, facing her writhing attacker. The numbing pain forbade her to even move, and she sobbed loudly, wishing for the pain to go away.

However she was fully aware of her two new friends standing over her like guardian angels. They weren't scared. At all. Instead, they looked determined, as if they knew that this dangerous creature couldn't hurt them.

"Yarrow, protect Mabel," Pacifica ordered, and her horse nodded her great head and stepped over her protectively. No wild animal should understand humans to an extent like that, Mabel knew that all too well. Waddles knew how to 'fetch', 'stay', 'go' and 'come' to name a few tricks, but when Mabel tried to give him a more complex command like 'open the door' or 'come meet me at 2pm', Waddles just stared at her, confused.

Mabel knew how to train animals, and knew they they associated different sounds with commands. But this mare Pacifica had was different. She seemed to understand what her mistress was actually saying, rather than recognising the sounds she made.

But Mabel didn't get to think about that for long. From where she was laying, she could see Pacifica step forward.

Mabel didn't want to watch, but felt she had to. It looked like Yarrow was watching too, but the animal was standing unworried, giving her mistress an encouraging whinny.

 _Why isn't she afraid for Pacifica?_ Mabel wondered uneasily.

The blond-haired blue-eyed girl couldn't go up against a chimera alone! She was going to get torn to shreds!

The chimera crouched when it saw Pacifica approach it. The sunlight caught its fur, making it glow gold and silver where the goat and lion had merged together, the snake behind puffing up like the huge green cobra that it was. All three heads were hissing threateningly. The creature was absolutely terrifying.

But Pacifica was unconcerned. She took another step towards the creature, and began to speak.

"Okay, I'm going to say this once," she said emotionlessly, just as Mabel had heard it before they became friends. "I'm giving you a chance to return to the bushes and don't bother us again."

The chimera stopped its growling at once and it stood up confused, as if it understood what Pacifica had said, though it was only for a split second. The snake reminded the goat and the lion to get their act together through a shrill hiss, and the whole monster was crouched again, poised for battle.

"Pacifica, run..." Mabel called, but her shoulder pain was so intense she couldn't raise her voice louder than a whisper. With a horrible lurch in her stomach, Mabel realised that she was about to watch her new friend die.

The chimera advanced, all three of its heads howling out a horrible battle cry, but Pacifica merely walked out of its way. She looked as if just walking around a tame domesticated animal.

So the creature attacked. It lashed out with a great lion paw, claws outstretched from each other to cover more area. The claws made a loud swish noise as they travelled through the air. Mabel twitched and gasped in horror as the claws caught onto Pacifica's face, but to her complete shock Pacifica didn't yowl out in pain like Mabel did, though the impact forced her to turn her head towards the two. There were three scratch marks running across Pacifica's face, one across her forehead, one across her chin and the third across her very eyes.

But they weren't bleeding. Though the flesh sagged like leather and the veins and muscles were clearly torn, it didn't seem to hurt the girl. Instead, Mabel watched in complete silence as the tissues pulled themselves back together, any damage repairing themselves before skin covered the open wounds, so flawlessly and effortlessly as if the chimera had never scarred her at all.

How did she do that?

The chimera was as surprised as Mabel, and it punctuated its shock with a weird hiss, as if it was talking to the girl in its strange language.

Pacifica didn't reply, though Mabel knew she understood the monster. Instead, she reached out with a hand and calmly, very gently, touched the creature's shoulder.

Instantly the chimera's growling turned into one, continuous, long ear-shattering scream.

Mabel stared dumbfounded at them. Pacifica was only touching it, yet the beast reacted as if ot had been cut open. Then she realised that there was smoke coming from where Pacifica's pale skin touched the golden-silver fur of the chimera.

When Pacifica took her hand away, she left a charred, dark handprint which smouldered and sizzled and stank of burned fur. Now the predator had doubled over in pain on the grass, all three of its heads looking up at Pacifica fearfully, whimpering loudly.

"Get out of here," said Pacifica coldly, and watched as the chimera scrambled to its four legs and dived into the bushes again, never to be seen again.

Mabel had no idea what to think. What had she just watched?

Slowly Pacifica turned towards Mabel, a worried expression on her pretty face. There was uncertainty in her eyes, but she seemed to tell herself to not worry and made her way to Mabel.

Instantly Yarrow stepped off Mabel, seeing no need to protect her anymore. Instead the mustang mare flopped down onto the grass, curling her legs under her neatly and nodded at her mistress.

But Yarrow's owner didn't share her expression of accomplishment. Instead, Pacifica knelt beside a speechless Mabel.

"Can I look at your wound?" she asked quietly.

In all that commotion Mabel forgotten about the massive, still bleeding bite-mark on her shoulder. Why was it that when she was reminded of it, the pain returned?

"It's not that painful," lied Mabel, though Pacifica shook her head, as if knowing instantly that she was lying. She helped Mabel to sit up.

"Okay, you have to promise me not to freak out," Pacifica told her sternly, and Mabel hesitated before she shook her head.

What was Pacifica about to do? Put her out of her misery? Send her to a better place?

But that was not what the blonde did. Her hand gently touched Mabel's wound. The brunette had expected it to burn, just like it did when she touched that chimera, but strangely it was cold. There was no heat coming from Pacifica at all.

It was worrying on its own. Dipper gave off heat, so did Soos and so did Wendy and so did her parents and so did Stan and so did any other living being in the world. Mabel knew that because she hugged everyone. But not Pacifica. It only occurred to her now, but when Pacifica was sleeping next to her or took her hand, her skin was always very cold. At first Mabel thought it was normal, but while some people were indeed cold, but with Pacifica it felt like touching liquid nitrogen.

Pacifica closed her eyes, and each vein in her entire body burst into a bright white light so that the girl looked like she had some sort of glowing liquid flowing instead of blood. At that very same moment, Mabel felt as if her whole self was being sucked towards her wound, where Pacifica had her hand placed.

"Ga-ah!" Mabel gasped as the uneasy feeling intensified, making her very organs do violent backflips. Though it was only for a few moments. When Pacifica took her hand away, she took the pain away from her too.

Her veins ceased to glow, and Pacifica opened her eyes.

No longer were they blue with round pupils. Instead they were like two amber flames through the smoke, cat-like slits staring back at her apologetically.

Mabel had a sudden, quick flash of memory. Bipper had eyes exactly like that, though they were coloured like gold nuggets and not like smooth amber as Pacifica's were.

"Sorry," Pacifica said quietly, blinking to get rid of those terrifying eyes. Once again her pretty blue ones were back in their sockets. "Will you have to tell anyone about this?"

Mabel had no idea what to reply. Ideally she should tell Dipper and Stan what she had seen, so that her brother could nerd out over it and Stan could lose interest in it. She couldn't keep secrets to herself, it was wrong! But she couldn't think about that right now.

"What exactly happened?" Mabel asked a little loudly, all sorts of questions buzzing around her head.

Pacifica looked over at Yarrow, who flicked her ears in a reassuring manner. Pacifica didn't look reassured at all.

"I don't really know," she said honestly, spreading her hands in a hopeless gesture. "I just... got mad and I did... that." She rubbed her shoulders awkwardly.

"But what even are you?" Mabel asked again.

Pacifica laughed dryly. "That's exactly it. I don't know either."

There was silence between them for a while. A weird silence, for it wasn't awkward nor intentional, but rather morbid. Pacifica lowered her head, not wanting to look Mabel in the face at all.

Then the realisation hit Mabel like a truck. "You're a fairy princess!" she exclaimed suddenly.

"What?"

"A fairy princess!" Mabel repeated happily, a cheerful smile appearing on her face. "They have magic, don't they? I know all about them! They have healing magic, that's what you did here, right? Right?"

Mabel lifted her sweater, which had somehow gotten the crimson stain drained out of it so it still glittered a violent shade of purple, and saw how the bite mark had mysteriously vanished. "Yup. Healing magic alright! That's just brilliant?"

"It is?" For some reason Pacifica didn't look convinced.

"I would love to have magic!" Mabel shouted excitedly, standing up to her feet to get a better view of the forest around her. She stared to wave her hands about as if performing magic herself. "I'd make so many butterfly-kittens appear that everyone could have one!" She looked at Pacifica questioningly. "You can make butterfly-kittens appear, right?"

Though Pacifica shook her head. "I never tried, and I never want to try," was her answer.

Mabel cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Why not? It would be pretty cool!"

"Humans don't have powers Mabel!" Pacifica wailed, crawling like a toddler over to Yarrow's side to lay down on her brown pelt. "They don't heal people at will, they don't glow, they don't scorch others by touching them... who knows what I'm capable of? I don't want to know, ever."

"Wait so you're not a human with superpowers?"

Pacifica gave a massive sigh. "I'm a beast of the forest, that's all I know." She lifted her purple t-shirt to show Mabel her belly-button-less belly. Mabel gasped and Pacifica let her clothes fall again.

Mabel sat back down again, egging Pacifica for an explanation. The other girl understood that she didn't have another choice.

"My parents found me in the woods twelve years ago in winter," said Pacifica quietly shall anyone be eavesdropping. "They adopted me as one of their daughter since my mother is incapable of having children. They paid some illegal person to fake a birth certificate for me. It's actually scary what you can do with an insane amount of money. They named me Pacifica Northwest, and kept my secret hidden from the rest of the world."

"That sounds like from a story!" Mabel awed. Pacifica managed a laughed. She seemed more subdued now, more than ever. The Pines girl couldn't put together this quiet, self-conscious creature with the rich, bratty girl the other townsfolk knew her as.

But Pacifica was still concerned. "Mabel, please don't tell anyone about what you've seen of me. It's better if they don't know at all."

Though Mabel was disappointed, she ultimately agreed. Pacifica made her swear not to tell another living soul, not even Dipper or Stan or Waddles.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

* * *

Pacifica couldn't fall asleep that night. She closed her eyes against the world, but she would open them back up again soon enough. Sleep wouldn't take her anymore.

Perhaps a creature like her didn't need to sleep. Annoyed, Pacifica snuggled up to her blanket and forced herself to enter the sleep realm, though she was thrown back out of it soon enough. Restlessness made her shift her sleeping position, but eventually it made her sit up.

She had been given a busted mattress to sleep on with the twins up in the attic, with a couple of spear blankets dug up from some spare room. It was somehow more comfortable than her bed back home. Then why couldn't she sleep? She slept before, didn't she?

 _When she reaches her twelfth year her power will be at its breaking point._

Those were her father's words. She was getting more powerful, and she was scared. What would happen if she couldn't handle herself anymore? She remembered how powerful she felt when she went up against that chimera earlier in the day.

She could even go up against a creature straight from Greek Mythology that could've and would've ripped apart a human being. How powerful was she truly going to get?

Mabel and Dipper both slept soundly, ignorant to the world around them while they breathed silently against the night. Why couldn't Pacifica be like them? Problem-free and human and sleeping.

So Pacifica stood to her feet. She'd go to the bathroom, then try again to fall asleep. Maybe she'd have a better chance of succeeding if she gave herself a break.

The night outside was starless and moonless, the sky covered by a thick layer of dark clouds. If Pacifica had not possessed her night-vision she would've had to navigate with touch alone. Her footsteps made no noise as she made her way to the bathroom. When she got there, her hand outstretched to open the door.

 _ **Wait!**_

A voice was calling to her. Pacifica took her hand away from the handle and looked around. She knew this voice. This was the voice she had heard when she had spoke with the tapestry. This was the voice the crow had used.

 _What do you want?_ Pacifica asked, or rather thought. She could communicate telepathically with that other demon, so why create extra noise that might wake up the Pines?

 _ **To talk with you of course! Down this way, little girl. I want to see you.**_

Pacifica could feel herself turning her head towards the other end of the attic, where the unknown room was. Mabel had told her the attic split into three rooms. Their bedroom, the bathroom, and some unused room where Dipper would sit at the window. The voice wanted her to go there.

 _Can't you come to me instead?_ Pacifica snarled.

The voice seemed to snicker before replying. _**Ah, challenging as ever my dear llama. I would if I could, but since we're not in the mindscape right now, I can make this window just pop out of its frame and walk towards you. So be a good girl and come here.**_

Pacifica sighed in annoyance and turned away from the bathroom to walk into the other room. _There, you happy now-_

There was a single window in that room. A triangle with an eye in the centre, just like in that tapestry. The pupil seemed to be moving, and it brightened when Pacifica came in.

 _ **Ah! There you are my dear dearie!**_ It exclaimed. _**Why don't you have a seat?**_

Pacifica's face fell grimly. _I prefer standing. Besides, can't you show me what you really look like instead of taking multiple forms?_

The eye in the window closed, then reopened. _**As I've said, it's not that simple with you. If I were to visit any of the Pines, for example, I'd enter their mindscape as easily as you change your appearance. But since we're both demons, you don't have a mindscape of your own. At least one that I can enter.**_

Pacifica shivered and leaned against the wall, asking the wood for some support. _You're creepy._

 _ **Why thank you!**_ thanked the voice cheerfully. _**But of course, if I can't visit you in the dreamscape or mindscape, I can't be who I really am. Hence the whole unnecessary fiasco with the crow. Have you ever been in a tiny bird's body? Flying is so unbearably difficult if you have two tiny feathered wings!**_

 _But who even are you?_ Pacifica asked desperately before the owner of the voice could rant on. _I don't even know your name, what you want from me or if I'm really one of you!_

The voice laughed again. _**Fortunately that's exactly what I've come here to tell you Llama dear! Name's Bill Cipher, and I'm what's called a dream demon. And that's exactly what you are! Except, thanks to you growing up in this dimension you now look like a pathetic human person. But hey! I like how you figured out how to hide! Kudos!**_

 _My name is Pacifica Northwest,_ Pacifica introduced herself, though it was most likely unnecessary since this demon watched her and probably knew more about her than she knew about herself.

 _ **Oh, that must be the name those humans gave you, isn't it?**_ The voice sounded surprised. _**Though I must say it is quite imaginative, I much prefer your demon name, as well as your demon self. Why must you be human when we're talking eye to eyes?**_

Pacifica looked back uncertainly, making sure nobody had sneaked up behind her. _Because we're in the Mystery Shack and I don't want them to know what I really look like._

 _ **Really?**_ said the voice slyly. _**You've already revealed your secret to Shooting Star, so why bother now? You had, are and will keep this secret for a long time, but all secrets answer themselves eventually.**_

Pacifica shuddered.

 _You didn't answer one of my questions,_ she barked, changing the subject swiftly. _What do you want from me?_

The window rolled its eye. **You're so impatient Llama!**

Why was he calling her Llama? Or at least it was a word that sounded a lot like llama.

 _ **But I guess it must all be so confusing for you! Like I said fate had prevented me from getting to you twice before. If those two Northwests hadn't found you, you'd be a fully trained, powerful demoness that stands at my side as my equal right now!**_

 _Wait your equal? Who even am I to you?_

The window closed its eye again. _**That I'll tell you in another time. I don't want you to worry too much about that now. All I want you to know was that you developed in that blackberry bush, and you were supposed to keep growing in there until you were as old as you are now, but those desperate parents wanted a child so they took you from me. Instead you developed on the outside, which I must say did turn out better than I expected. Look at you now Llama! You single-handedly beaten a chimera!**_

The fresh memory came crawling back and Pacifica forcefully beat it back.

I _didn't, don't and will never want to hurt anyone,_ she said definitively, shaking her head.

The eye opened and gave her an unimpressed glare. _**See? That's the human mentality you grew up with! There's always a minus to every solution! But don't you worry little Llama, you'll soon be free of that thinking.**_

 _What do you mean?_ Pacifica narrowed her eyes at the window.

 _ **Of course! I'm letting you have your fun with Shooting Star out of the goodness of my heart.**_ The triangle somehow managed to shake its head. _**I'll pick you up in three day's time, will that be okay? Then we'll get to meet, officially.**_

Pacifica's heart gave a horrified lurch. _Wait what? I don't want to be picked up! I belong here! In Gravity Falls!_

She didn't want nothing to do with this demon. She was a human! She is a human! She will be a human!

 _ **I'm not asking you. Take my word for it Llama, in three day's time I'll come and take you to the dreamscape, where you should've grown up in the first place! It's a beautiful place, don't you worry a bit! And you will return here when you're quite ready. My henchmaniacs will make quite a demoness of you and-**_

Pacifica had screamed in her mind, shutting out the demon's poisonous words from her mind. She ran out of the room, leaving behind the triangular window, breathing heavily.

Bill Cipher, whoever he was, was after her. In three days he was going to come.

What was going to happen in three days time? Would he just send her to sleep and drag her into the so-called dreamscape? Would he destroy the shack and take her by force?

Oh dear. This was not good. Not good at all.


	5. Chapter 5: The Third Day

"Boss?"

Bill glared around at the small turquoise monster, watching his eyes and the huge keyhole on his forehead widen with fear as he approached him. He seemed hesitant to ever speak to the dream demon. Rightfully so.

"Well?" Bill asked coldly when Keyhole hesitated for too long. "What news do you bring?"

Keyhole gulped in fear, but forced himself to speak.

"The other dream demon," Keyhole stammered hesitantly. There was a great pause. "She's with the Pines."

Bill didn't see what the huge deal was. "I know. What's your point?"

Keyhole shivered. "She... she's staying at the Pines' sides at all times. They're prepared to battle. Their minds are strong."

Bill narrowed his single eye, his gaze burning right through the littler monster. "No mind is too strong for me."

"I didn't imply that boss! It's just that, Fate had prevented you to get to the other dream demon twice before. She can prevent you from getting at her for a third time."

But to Keyhole's surprise Bill began to laugh.

"Fate? She thinks she can keep up with me?" Bill snorted and shook himself. "She's a good chess-player. But now it's my turn."

Keyhole took a slight step back. "But demons don't have mindscapes! It's not like we can travel to the real world!"

A monstrous laugh arose from the huge golden triangle. It was a laugh of complete madness- a laugh so insane it caused the entire dreamscape to shake.

"Perhaps not. But since she's already in the real world, it shouldn't be hard to alter her power."

* * *

"Good morning world!" Mabel greeted the morning as she sat up and stretched herself. She always greeted the world in the mornings. "Good morning Dipper!" she greeted Dipper, who was still asleep soundly in his bed. He murmured, but didn't quite wake. "Good morning Pacifica!"

But something wasn't quite right. Pacifica was where she was supposed to be, under the covers on that busted mattress, facing away from her. At first Mabel thought she was sleeping, but then she glanced towards Dipper, and realised.

Dipper's chest rose and fell, up and down steadily with every quiet breath. She could even hear his quiet inhales and exhales. Pacifica's chest was stationary. She was not moving.

"Pacifica?" Mabel asked hesitantly, growing concerned.

"Hey Mabel," replied the blonde at last. Mabel had expected her to move when she spoke, but it was as if the girl was frozen. Nothing from her moved, Mabel even doubted that Pacifica was breathing at all. "Good morning."

 _She's worried about something,_ Mabel thought. _Perhaps she's worried about that chimera fiasco three days ago?_ She jumped out of bed and padded up to her. "Cheer up Pacifica!" she yelled suddenly, jumping onto Pacifica's mattress, causing her to move at last. "It's a bright new day! A perfect day!"

Pacifica laughed along with her, but Mabel instantly recognised it as a forced, fake laugh. What was she so worried about? Maybe it was her parents? Yeah, that was probably it.

So Mabel crawled under the blankets and lay down next to her friend. She didn't know why she had expect to warm up from her- there was no heat coming from Pacifica at all. "You don't have to worry about your parents!" Mabel told her cheerfully. "They have to love you! You're their daughter!"

Pacifica twitched, but then nodded her head subtly. "I hope everything will be okay."

"Of course everything's going to be okay! In the meantime you can stay here with us!"

"Thanks Mabel."

But still Pacifica seemed unconvinced. She rose up from the mattress to stand to her feet. Was it just Mabel, or did Pacifica seem less... human? Or perhaps she just never noticed it before.

"Is it about that chimera?" Mabel asked hesitantly.

Pacifica looked down at her, slightly horrified. "No! It's..." She hesitated. "Yeah, it's the chimera."

Poor thing. Mabel completely understood as she recalled what Pacifica had said to her after the attack of the chimera. She was absolutely terrified of herself.

Though why now?

"Man I'm starving!" Mabel changed the subject swiftly. "What do you want for breakfast?"

But Pacifica shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

Mabel frowned. "Pacifica you hadn't had anything to eat since..." She furrowed her brow to remember. When was the last time Pacifica had eaten? The milkshake at Greasy's Diner... Pacifica refused to eat anything else, yet was still alive and strong and kicking.

"Oh, right."

Without any further questions, Mabel woke up Dipper, much to the boy's annoyance, and the three of them went downstairs to greet Gruncle Stan. As usual the old man's spirit lifted when he saw his great niece and nephew. And as usual, his expression soured when he glared at Pacifica.

* * *

 _Way to drop your act,_ Pacifica scolded herself at the breakfast table. Even someone like Mabel noticed. She took a bite of toast, but found that she could not recognise its taste anymore. It was bland like cardboard- tasteless and undecipherable.

 _When she reaches her twelfth year her power will be at its breaking point._

She was loosing her humanity, and it was getting harder to stay hidden. Her hunger and exhaustion had become non-existent to the point where she didn't sleep and didn't eat. She no longer needed to. The demon was taking over.

But that was the least of her worries right now. Today was the third day. The day Bill Cipher promised he would come for her.

A snap before her eyes recalled Pacifica from her thoughts. She turned to glare at Mabel, but the brunette burst out laughing.

"You sure are a thinking-boi today Pacifica!" she giggled sweetly. "What'cha thinking?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

Mabel giggled. "Oh sure, sure. I bet you're thinking about the hottest guy you've ever seen!"

A dry laugh escaped Pacifica's lips as she tried to cheer up. At least Mabel was being comforting about it, even though she hardly knew what was happening behind the scenes. And despite not wanting to admit it, she was glad that the tussles she had with her former enemy was now water under the bridge.

"Morning dudes!" the big repair-guy of the Mystery Shack greeted them warmly, entering the kitchen with a dramatic flare. He set down a muddy toolbox on the table, right next to Pacifica's plate, some of the brown stuff flicking onto her face.

Instantly the girl tensed up, freaking out that the dirty thing had touched her skin. It didn't help when Stan and Dipper found it hilarious.

This day was just getting worse and worse. Pacifica wiped the mud off her face with the back of her hand and crossed her arms on the desk, hiding her face in her forearms.

A few minutes passed as she listened in to the Pines' conversations, but not really taking in any of it. Her anxiety and insecurities were combining now to form a huge internal crisis, and it was not a good thing.

"Mr. Pines," Pacifica said suddenly. "Do you have a carrot I could borrow?"

Stan looked at her as if she had just asked him to construct a nuclear bomb. "What?"

"A carrot. May I borrow one?"

"What do you want a carrot for?" Dipper asked, cocking his head to the side.

In reply Pacifica gestured to the window, which overlooked the yard. The brown mare was grazing on the grass peacefully, occasionally lapping at the fresh morning dew.

"It's not exactly borrowing then, if you're not going to give it back," Soos corrected helpfully. "Unless you pick up the remains of it once it comes out of her."

"That's disgusting!" Dipper, Stan, Mabel and Pacifica said at once.

But after the shenanigans, Stan had given Pacifica a single carrot, and the blonde left the kitchen to go into the yard. She tried to breathe in the fresh morning air, but her lungs refused to take in any breaths. Even something as simple as breathing was beginning to fade away.

"Hi Yarrow," Pacifica greeted the horse as she stood on the porch. The mare raised her head and whinnied her own greeting. "I have to talk to you."

Pacifica jumped down from the porch and began to walk towards her friend, her movements were fluid and sure.

"Here you go." She offered Yarrow the carrot, and the horse's expression brightened. She didn't mind when she helped herself to the orange vegetable. "Yarrow I need your advice."

The horse snorted.

"What would you do if you were hunted by another of your own kind?" asked Pacifica.

Yarrow flicked her ears, and pulled a thinking expression. Her lips drew back to show her funny teeth as she pondered. Not even this could raise a smile on Pacifica's face. Eventually she neighed a quiet neigh for her reply.

"Yes I know you'd beat up them up!" Pacifica snapped, cursing herself when Yarrow flinched. "I'm not sure you can do that with... Y'know, a demon." She whispered the last past so only Yarrow could hear. "I don't know what he can do or what he'll do even." She pressed her face to Yarrow's warm fur. "You'll sound the call if anything suspicious comes?"

Yarrow's fur stood on end in anticipation, but whinnied her sullen agreement.

At least Yarrow was on guard now. The call would be unmistakeable when coming from anyone, and would warn her should anyone come.

For the first time that morning Pacifica felt a little more secure.

So the day started off as all the other days did. Stan had set out the jobs, leaving the hardest for Dipper as always, which he of course complained about. He set out Wendy to work in the giftshop, Soos to repair the damage done in the fuse boxes by vandals while Mabel, Dipper and Pacifica were set to clear up inside the attraction after Stan had completed every tour. Cleaning up included getting rid of the faulty attractions, getting rid of mould, glue and vomit and any other disgusting thing the tourists had left behind.

It was a filthy job, and Stan was strict with schedule, and Pacifica wanted to constantly complain about the unsanitary conditions and the fact that she was not getting paid, but she forced herself to keep her mouth shut, though she did make a sound of disgust every time she was forced to clean up vomit or chewed gum of a puddle of questionable liquid.

By about midday Pacifica shed her troubled thoughts. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, so far. Maybe she had counted the days wrong? There was no need to worry, Pacifica had decided, and she even joined in with laughing along with Dipper and Mabel as if nothing else mattered.

It truly seemed like it.

When Stan finally gave the tired employees a break, Pacifica excused herself to the bathroom. She didn't need to go, and highly doubted she would ever need to again, but she needed to look human to the others. She had consciously raised and dropped her shoulders to make it look like she was breathing. It was going smoothly so far, and Pacifica knew how to hide. She hid for twelve years, why should this time be any different?

After a few moments sitting idly on the closed toilet seat, Pacifica decided that it was time to return to the others. She stood to her feet, flattening her purple designer clothes down so they looked mildly acceptable. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the mirror.

She first looked at her reflection willingly, but then her blue orb-eyes widened.

The reflection was staring at her like a snake at a mouse, eyes glistening with the gaze of a murderer. That mouth, it wasn't her human mouth. The long, crooked fangs were catching the light, stained red with blood.

Pacifica blinked, and suddenly the reflection was nothing but a horrified face. Pacifica shook her head, hoping it was just a hallucination. It was probably a trick of the light.

"Did you really think that I would ever let you go?"

 _That voice!_

Pacifica spun round quickly, and leapt back from a huge black hand that had tried to grab at her. When she stood out of its reach, her own shadow took its arm back to the wall. A shadow wasn't normally this dark. It was usually just a darker shade of whatever the shadow was cast on, but this one- it was blacker than her worst nightmares. It was moving without Pacifica, like it was its own entity.

"Are you-"

"Yes," replied her shadow, opening two ghastly yellow eyes. "It's the third day, remember? A demon always keeps their promise, you should know that."

Once again the black creature outstretched a long black arm from the wall, hand held out smoothly, waiting for Pacifica to take it. "It's time to come home."

But Pacifica stayed put. She crossed her arms, and took a step back from her own shadow. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

The shadow dropped in posture, yellow eyes widening in disbelief at her. "What are you trying to prove this way, Llama? There's no-one here to witness anything that happens between us now. Not Pine Tree, Crescent Moon, Question Mark or Ice Bag. Not even Shooting Star or your horse. Nobody will know of your situation if you come with us now."

Pacifica looked away from it, unable to express anything from her blank face. Most people were lucky to not be faced with such difficult choices. Pacifica was not 'most people'.

Eventually Pacifica shook her head in defiance.

"You really want to do this the hard way? You're coming with me either way, and I don't want to have to hurt you." There was genuine determination shattering about the demon's voice. It meant what it said. Every single word was true. But Pacifica had made up her mind.

"You've caused me enough worry," Pacifica snapped back at it. "Leave me alone already!"

She turned away from the shadow and opened the door, beginning to waltz out. But a cold laughter made her stop. It was a laugh straight from the gates of hell, able to chill even the biggest brute to the bone.

"It will be as you wish, Llama," said her shadow, pulling itself away from the wall. It was a perfect, smooth creature, like a dark mannequin of pure black energy. Neither Pacifica nor the creature had a shadow anymore, and suddenly the whole room around was dim to the very corners. "Time you learned how complicated life can be!"

With a monstrous grawl, the shadow which was once a human creature, lost shape, grew in size and transformed into a being nobody could ever imagine. It no longer resembled a living thing.

In the blink of an eye Pacifica went from being calm and reserved to fleeing for her life. Out of the bathroom she burst, and leapt down the stairs, while the creature behind her tore away at the cheap wood with its claws as if it was polystyrene. Those two yellow eyes merged into one, fixed on its target.

"Mabel! Dipper! Anyone!" Pacifica shrieked in panic, heading towards the main attractions, where she had previously left the others. She could feel her shadow's disgusting breath on her nape, it was getting closer. "Help! HELP!"

The Pines had knowledge of supernatural creatures like this one. They had no know how to deal with it!

With a last desperate leap Pacifica made it through the door to the attractions, slamming it shut in the nick of time. Her feet buried into the wood, somehow, and she jolted when the creature crashed into the closed door. It gave a grunt of anger and continued to ram against it.

"Pacifica?"

The blonde looked up, gasping for breath. "Mabel! Dipper!" she exclaimed at them. They were fairly confused and very concerned.

"We heard screaming," Dipper began. "Was it you?"

Pacifica bit her own lip. "Of course it was me! I'm getting chased by this shadowy what-cha-ma-dingus and it nearly had my head!"

"Oh come on Pacifica," Mabel yawned as if it was nothing. "It's not like this is an armada of lilly-putans. They nearly killed you too. Shouldn't you be used to that by now?"

Pacifica's whole being dropped in disbelief. "That monster is in your house and it wants to kill me!"

As if to emphasise her point, the monster behind the door gave a growl and rammed into the door again, nearly breaking Pacifica's back in the process. That was enough to convince the twins. Dipper had already flipped up his journal and began to read.

"Hmm, what does this creature look like?" he questioned curiously.

Pacifica whimpered. "It's all black, like a manifestation of nightmares, and it has a single yellow eye."

Both of the Pines trembled when Pacifica mentioned the eye.

"Could it be-"

"No, he has no power outside the mindscape," Dipper corrected his sister. "That's why he takes over people's bodies."

Mindscape? So the Pines knew about that too? Pacifica shuddered, wondering when they would realise that she was not what she appeared to be. Hopefully it was never.

"Well?" she huffed, feeling the monster press its entire weight to the door. "I don't think I can hold it for this long!"

But Dipper was shaking his head as he flipped the pages. "I dunno!" his voice began to crack as he fell prey to fear. "It says nothing about any shadowy creatures!"

"What about demons?" Mabel suggested, the whole Mystery Shack shaking now. The monster's growls and snarls grew louder so dust fell from the ceiling. "If there's anything I know about your nerdness you've pounded into my head is that Bill Cipher has a yellow eye!"

 _What did she just say!?_

Pacifica froze. They knew about Bill! They knew about the one who was hunting her! But Pacifica became distracted. It was just that little moment of hesitation that caused the door to bust off its hinges.

"PACIFICA!"

However milliseconds before, everything slowed down. Everything seemed so... detailed now. Every grain of dust from the ceiling, every movement of mosquitos, every strand of hair moving. Pacifica could hear the monster on the other side raise its fist, and she leapt away from the door.

The wooden door smashed to bits, splinters flung in all directions. The victorious roar from the monster caused a mini earthquake, a dreadful sound which could be heard from miles away, the single yellow eye glowing. Glowing.

"Come on! Get up!"

There was no time to think now. In times of need, people knew how to work together. Mabel and Pacifica dragged Dipper off the ground, turning to flee further into the Mystery Shack.

There were times where the monster strayed behind corners, its stomping footsteps growing quieter for a moment, and there were times where it was right on them, snapping at the children's heels.

"Is it normal for you to be chased by nightmare creatures?" Pacifica yowled out once they've turned another corner.

"Yep!" Mabel replied between panting for breath. "Oh we've been chased by an alien shapeshifter, a giant gnome that was really a bunch of little gnomes, an icky Gideon-bot... oh! There was also loser-candy on summerween!"

"Mabel! There's no time to count out the times we've faced death!" Dipper shut her up, leading the charge down an employee route Stan would take to jump at the audience from an unexpected angle. It was not big enough for the monster to follow, so its hand reached out into the corridor, grasping out. It found a target, the black clawed hand closing over an ankle and pulled.

"MABEL!"

The brunette tripped violently, her chin hitting the ground hard which caused her to bite her own tongue. Her fingers desperately clawed at the wooden floor, fighting and failing to get a grip on the wood. As the creature pulled her back, Mabel tried to kick at it, a scream of absolute and utter terror drowning out the monster's growls. Behind her, the shadow had opened its mighty mouth, showing off many upon many rows of hideous blackened teeth, ready to swallow her whole.

But something had halted Mabel's doom. Two strong hands had grasped Mabel's right wrist, pulling in the other direction. There was no way Pacifica was letting go of Mabel. No way in hell. A few nanoseconds later Dipper was at her side, grasping Mabel's other wrist and heaved with all his might.

"Let go you monster!" Dipper yelled, his fury at his sister being attacked causing him to use the strength he never knew he had. "Let go of my sister!"

There was that desperation and fear of losing someone close in his voice, Pacifica recognised it instantly. She didn't want him to suffer because of her choices. She didn't want her to suffer because of her choices. So she dug her feet into the wood and pulled with all her might.

Now Mabel was hanging in midair, pulled at from both sides. One side was her friends, the other was certain doom. She kicked at the monster's hand, but it held on fast. No matter the spirit, two kids weren't enough to win against a massive monster.

It was pulling them back, all three of them. That was when Pacifica had enough.

"Take this," she said as she handed Mabel's other wrist to the boy beside her. He looked at her as if she was a lunatic.

"What are you doing! I can't hold her by myself!" he objected, tears forming at his eyes but not falling. Pacifica's expression soured and she shoved the wrist into Dipper's hands.

"Dipper, don't let go," Mabel pleaded, still fighting though her strength was giving out.

Pacifica gave her a grim yet determined look. _You're not dying because of my shadow._

Suddenly Pacifica felt no fear, only dry madness. She could feel her true form writhe under her humanity, begging to be set free. Her footsteps were loud, louder than any noise- louder than the monster's inhuman sounds and Mabel and Dipper's gasps.

The hand that held Mabel's ankle was still going strong, but it was the weak spot. Even a child could see that. Almost like in a trance, Pacifica grabbed hold of the monster's wrist and of Mabel's ankle. The human's skin was smooth and warm to the touch, the monster felt cold and heartless.

Pacifica looked it dead in the eye. For a moment her pupils thinned into cat-like slits.

"You were, are and are going to leave us alone!" she shrieked, overcoming the heat of the situation with all her might. With a swift flick, Pacifica pulled the hand right off the monster's arm. The two Pines fell further into the narrow corridor while the monster fell back, hissing in what was undeniable rage.

 ** _You're fighting! I'm impressed!_** the cold voice rang in her head. Pacifica shook it away.

"Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!" Mabel panicked, uncurling the monster's fingers away from her ankle. She really shouldn't've bothered, since the shadow lost its shape and melted back into the floor. Thankfully the two twins didn't notice it attach itself to the base of Pacifica's foot. It was her shadow again, but only a little part of it. The rest was still that monster.

Dipper was the first to break the horrifying silence. "I don't get it. Why is a creature like this be inside the Mystery Shack? I didn't bring it here! And I'm pretty sure it would've attacked much sooner if it was just hiding out in the shadows."

 _I brought it here, I'm so sorry,_ Pacifica apologised silently.

Thankfully Mabel came to her rescue once again, without even knowing it. "You're looking too much into it bro bro! Do you know its weakness? How we can beat it?"

"That is we can beat it at all," Dipper replied grimly. "Right now it has us pinned in this narrow corridor, which leads to only a few metres away from where the entrance is, so that won't give us much of a headstart in terms of flight."

"Then why did you lead us here in the first place!?" Pacifica suddenly growled, once again regretting her harsh reaction when Dipper shuddered. "I'm sorry, I'm just scared."

"But what are we going to do?" Mabel asked. Her voice was frail after being violently pulled at. "Where's Stan?"

"Do you seriously think that Stan has a chance against that thing!?" Dipper yelled at her, now beginning to tremble. "It'll tare him apart!"

He shook himself, aware that both girls were looking to him for guidance. He had the plans after all. He took a deep breath and stood to his feet. "Our only chance is to escape from the other exit, the monster can't know about it. It's a small chance of survival, but nothing else will work. It's either that or complete death."

So Dipper lead the way along the narrow shortcut, leaving the shrieking monster behind. It roared and called desperately for them to come back, but none of the kids listened. The narrow walls looked strange and alien, leaning into the kids, pressing into them.

Suddenly Dipper paused, forcing the girls following him to halt. The sudden silence around was unsettling. Very carefully the boy poked his head out, looking both ways like an animal looking to cross a dangerous road. When he stepped out of their safespot, he made no sound. It was almost like he had paws instead of feet, and was more sure-footed than a human should ever be. Mabel followed him, but she was less lucky.

The floorboard creaked as she stepped out, and Pacifica heard the monster turn its head towards the twins, gasping out a hiss of pleasure that it had them in its sights. The siblings shrieked and pelted the other way, the black creature shortly behind.

"No!"

Pacifica jumped out of the corridor, watching her shadow chase her only genuine friends, no longer paying attention to her. It left behind a trail of torn wood and splinters and bad memories.

"Hey! Come back!" she screamed after them, but the black creature was already gone into the depths of the Mystery Shack.

So Bill wanted the consequences of her denial of him to be as drastic as possible. Pacifica's whole heart shattered. The Pines were going to suffer because of her.

* * *

The Pines Twins were experts in running away from things, having done so many times before. But never had they had to flee in the Mystery Shack, for it was the one place that was perfectly safe. And where did the monster come from?

Now was not the time for questions. All that mattered now was running as fast as they could in the other direction.

Pacifica was left behind, but at least she was safe. The Pines had handled dangerous creatures like this before, this one should be no different.

"Where are we leading it!?" Mabel asked, desperate to hear Dipper's cunning plan.

But Dipper didn't have a cunning plan. Right now the two were feeding off their primal instincts- flight or fight. They had chosen flight.

Dipper looked at her apologetically, leading his sister down the way of the 'abnormal animals' that Stan was particularly fond of. It was shortest way out. They had a bigger advantage in open space, not in an enclosed shack the monster was taring up. Dipper knew that if they lead this creature outside to where Wendy, Soos and Stan were, the monster wouldn't stand a chance. They could count the three bigger people to fight with axes, handyman tools or bare fists alone. With them, their chances of beating this monster rose. Together they could do this. They had to rely on that.

But the twins were not quick enough. The monster had caught up to them. It leapt forward in a great, sure bound, and struck the boy and the girl in the back with two of its clawed hands. The twins bellowed in pain and fright, hitting the ground with a synchronised thud. Before they had the chance to get up, the monster had them pinned down to the ground.

Mabel instantly began to squirm and fight and beat against the darkness, but Dipper barely had the strength to struggle against the tight claws that held him in place.

"Oh stop struggling," the monster said suddenly. Dipper recognised the voice instantly.

Bill Cipher.

"It's you?" Mabel and Dipper gasped in unison, so shocked that they did stop fighting for a brief moment.

"How are you here!?" Dipper asked him, voice cracking much more than he was proud of. Dipper thought that Bill had no power in the real world and needed to take care of humans to do his bidding. Was that all a lie?

Evidently the demon had read his mind. "You think I'm limited to controlling living matter? Though I must say it is much more of a hassle, but controlling another demon's shadow is also an option."

"There's more of you!?" this time it was Mabel who screamed. "Another Bill Cipher?"

"Clossssse," sang the monster creepily.

But its taunts were cut short. A shiny axe flew through the air, catching the dim light so that everyone had to close their eyes. A nanosecond later the axe was lodged into the monster's eye, blasting it back away from the twins. There was an awful trail of shadowy blood left behind, which quickly lost its render and slithered away.

"Wendy!"

"Get up, we need to go," the fifteen-year-old told them quickly. She grabbed the collars of Dipper's vest and Mabel's sweater and pulled them to their feet. "You'll explain later."

A few moments later the twins and the redhead were running once more, past the glued animals and many other pointless attractions. The monster was once again gaining on them, now more desperate to catch them. The eye in the centre had now gone a poisonous scarlet, bloodshot and horrible.

At last the three had leapt through the doorway into open space, gasping for fresh air and stumbling on their feet. The monster wasn't too far behind them. With a crash it burst through the small doorway into the outside after its prey.

"NOW!"

The monster realised that it had fallen into a trap too late. Soos and Stan had been waiting for it at both sides, armed with two of Stan's ten guns, fully loaded. Stan barely hesitated in going for the attack, while Soos had to calm down his fear before also taking part in the ambush.

"We heard that thing," Wendy quickly explained to the shocked twins. "It could be heard everywhere. Any ideas on how to take it out?"

But Dipper and Mabel shook their heads in dismay. "It's Bill," Dipper whispered, horrified. "And we're no longer in the mindscape. We can't beat him with our imaginations anymore."

"Then let's hope our human toys do the trick," Wendy growled, pulling a second axe from her belt and raised it at the level of her head. "You two try to find something to go to war with." Then with a unique battlecry the Corduroy flung herself at the shadow along with Soos and Stan, who had it distracted from both sides.

"Dipper stop being lovestruck!" Mabel yowled a few seconds later, shaking her blushing brother. "We have to help them!" She pulled out her trusty grappling hook from her sweater pocket and took aim. "We're taking down Bill as we always do. Together!" She pressed the trigger.

The metal spike lodged onto one of the black shoulders, holding fast while the creature tried to swipe at the darting Wendy all while getting pelted at from both sides. Mabel pulled with all her might, and soon the creature began to unbalance.

It was not looking good for the shadow. Trying to catch Wendy was like trying to catch a bluebottle with your bare hands while getting shot at with peashooters. It fumbled about, trying to fend against its human attacks. How ironic that it was now at the receiving end of the attack when it started out as the hunter.

"It's working!" Dipper exclaimed happily.

"Oh no, it's not," growled the monster. It was beyond furious. It took its focus off of Wendy and instead grasped the thin line that attached itself to its shoulder, and it pulled violently. As a result Mabel was pulled towards it, still clutching onto the grappling hook with all her might. The risen black hand blotted out the sunlight as the monster prepared its third attack on Shooting Star.

But the swipe of claws didn't reach the little girl. The teen was faster. She leapt in front of Mabel and-

-the monster batted her away as if she was just some mere insect. Wendy was thrown to the ground, red hair sprawled everywhere. She didn't get up again.

With a terrified gasp Dipper instantly ran over to help her.

That little victory was enough to make the monster reassure itself and start fighting back. With a swift kick it booted at Soos, making him lose grip on his weapon and tumble to the ground.

It was all beginning to fall apart. The monster was winning.

"Hey Ugly!"

 _That voice!_

Quickly the shadowy creature spun round to face the direction where the voice came from. Its single eye widened upon the sight.

Its prey was standing on her steed, a look of cold fury upon her face as she looked down at it. If looks could kill, the monster would be dead.

"It's me you wanted, want and will want!" Pacifica yelled. "If you want me, come get me!"

With that she sat on the horse's back and galloped into the lush green forest.

A flash of memory streaked across the monster's mind. It had a purpose of being here! Goddamn the Pines family getting it sidetracked! They held no meaning! It was that girl it wanted. It was the girl it needed.

So it turned away from Stan, giving chase into the trees and with one final shriek all went silent again.

A few moments of panting and shock followed the monster's attack. Nobody was able to pick themselves up.

Stan was the first to speak. "Is everyone still in one piece?"

There was a mumble of discouraged agreement from Soos and Mabel. But Dipper seemed less sure.

"Wendy's knocked out cold," he stammered. "I-I-I think she'll be okay if we take c-care of her."

The boy looked up at the Mystery Shack. Right on cue, the 'S' that they had put up once again fell down from the sign. In normal circumstances nobody would give it any thought, but somehow Dipper felt even worse than ever before.

The Shack was shredded, Mabel and Soos were hurt, Pacifica was gone, Wendy was unconscious and all hope seemed lost.

 _Pacifica was gone._

It took Dipper a couple of minutes to clear his mind after Wendy's downfall. The whole event played back to him as if on a cassette tape.

"Pacifica!" his eyes darted to the forest where the horse, girl and monster vanished, but they were no longer there anymore. What was she thinking!?

"She lead that bastard away," Stan huffed. "Got to give it to that Northwest, she's braver than she looks."

But Mabel had also realised what this meant. "But Pacifica's in danger!" A hand dropped onto her shoulder.

"We can't catch up to them now dude," Soos told her sadly.

Mabel shook his hand off her shoulder. "Yes we can! We have the golf cart! We can just drive!"

"Oh yeah?" Stan crossed his arms and shook his head. "Where did they go then?"

No matter how much she wanted to, Mabel couldn't answer that question.

Stan huffed again and stepped up to the limp ginger girl. "Let's get inside. The Northwest has a pretty high chance of outrunning that nightmare on horseback, so she'll lose him in the forest pronto. She'll be back before you know it."

Dipper wanted to believe that. However he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that had settled in his heart. Instead he watched as Stan picked Wendy up from the grass and carry her to the shack, Dipper and the others following shortly after. There was a big hole blasted the wall where the monster busted out, but that wasn't their biggest problem. The Mystery Shack was torn apart every other day, so this wasn't really new to any of them. What was new was the threat that caused this.

Dipper squinted, trying to remember what had happened in the past few moments. It had all happened so fast he barely had time to register it all.

What had Bill said?

 _"Controlling another demon's shadow is also an option."_

Another demon's shadow. There were other demons aside from Bill himself? And if so, who were they? Why hadn't he seen them? He'd been in the mindscape before, shouldn't he had seen any stray demons floating around that nobody else could see?

And why had Bill chosen to chase after Pacifica? He had them all where he wanted them, and he was winning. Didn't he want to tare them apart? Why had he run after someone that he barely interacted with at all?

"Dipper, you're pulling your thinking-face again," Mabel pointed out, fighting to keep her spirits high. "What'cha thinking?"

Dipper looked her dead in the face, and paused in his walking so that Soos and Stan could get a bit further up ahead. "Mabel, why do you think Bill went after Pacifica?"

Mabel gave him a shocked look. "What are you saying Dip? She did tare his hand off and call him 'ugly'."

"You're not getting the situation. Bill could've and would've killed all of us in one fell swoop, yet he chose to go after Pacifica. Why would he do that?"

Mabel made an 'IDK' noise with an awkward shrug. She tried to comprehend Dipper's question, but to her it was too much, so she sighed in defeat.

Dipper looked back at the hole in the wall and into the forest. For a while he waited, wanting to see the blonde girl on the brown horse emerge from the greenery, safe and sound, the black monster lost in the forest. But after a while he gave up. He and Mabel would go out looking for her once they've recovered.

Hopefully Pacifica would still be alive by then.

* * *

There was hardly any sounds in the depths of the coniferous forest. A flutter of wings, the scurry of tiny critters, the tapping of a woodpecker, the pounding of hooves against the dry undergrowth.

The mustang ran on despite the branches raking against her brown pelt, flawlessly clearing jumps over streams and logs. There were two hands clutching onto her mane, and her rider was leaning close to her neck, letting the wind over their heads. Further and further into the wilderness the horse ran, waiting for her rider's order to turn back.

"Further Yarrow," whispered her mistress into the horse's ear. "We'll lead him to the north and loose him there."

It sounded like a plan, so the mare flattened her furry ears against the wind. She heaved with her legs, and jumped cleanly over Mabel's favourite brook.

Birds fluttered off their branches as a sudden roar tore through the otherwise pleasant silence. The roar belonged to their pursuer, the black deformed creature that didn't look like anything any normal being had ever seen. It was a monster nobody should ever meet.

The white flower glanced back, and instantly wished she hadn't. The creature's presence made her look forward and put on a great burst of speed. The black creature didn't look like her mistress at all, even when she shed her disguise. And supposedly they were the same species. To Yarrow it made no sense at all, but she knew that if the monster wanted to take her rider, he had to take her as well.

"Faster," Pacifica whispered. "The trees up ahead are dark and like a maze, we can loose him in there."

It was very reasonable, and Yarrow once again jumped over a fallen tree. The monster stumbled, but scrambled over it to continue his chase.

Just like Pacifica had said, the trees in the most northern part of Gravity Falls were growing so close together a horse could just about make it through, both sides of the flank brushing to the trunks of the trees. And Yarrow knew that it was easy to lose someone in there. The horse and her rider had explored the entire forest. It was their home away from home, and knew every tree, every bush and every pathway. They knew this forest like the back of their hands.

Soon the trees became narrower, and Yarrow darted straight into the tight space. No normal horse and rider would even think of going into the tangles of trees, but in desperate times things like this were necessary.

The monster was far too big to pursue them further, and it smacked into two trees with a loud crunch and a howl. It tried to claw at them with its many hands, but Yarrow had already darted away into the shaded trees.

"He might go back to the shack," her rider pointed out. "I dunno Yarrow, let's keep heading forward."

Yarrow whinnied as she snaked through the trunks. Her ear flicked to prove her point.

"Yeah I know we've lost him, but he knows where we're going to go," she said again. "He seems pretty determined."

Flattening her ears, Yarrow kept on running. A loud shriek once again tore through, and both the horse and her girl looked up and behind them.

The shadow had changed shape. It still didn't look like anything alive, for its movements were robotic and awful. It was now long and skinny, so it could dart across the trees like a huge Black Mamba. It was still after them.

Now Yarrow and Pacifica were on the loosing side. There was no way a horse could outrun a snake-shadow in such narrow-spaced trees. But Yarrow kept running. It was the only way.

But the monster caught up to them easily. It gave another awful scream, dislocating its lower jaw to show its deep dark gullet. With one final strike the monster swallowed them whole.


	6. Chapter 6: The Devil's Backbone

It was very dark. In fact, it was all dark, like Pacifica had closed her eyes and couldn't open them again. Unfeelingness washed over her, as if she was just floating in space. No air passed through her non-existent lungs, and she couldn't distinguish hot from cold- she felt neither.

Perhaps this was nothing but a bad dream she couldn't wake up from? She couldn't struggle, and it was hard to determine if she was laying down, sitting or standing. Where was she?

Consciousness swept over her and she blinked her eyes animatedly, yet still saw nothing. She wanted to move, but all she accomplished was a jawdrop and letting her tongue loll out of her mouth like a dead dog. There was nothing worse than being conscious, yet not able to feel nothing. The sensation was awkward and disturbing, like a numbing drug had been injected into her entire body.

She had lost all sense of feeling since the darkness clouded her vision and pulled her away from Yarrow. Was her horse alright? The question made Pacifica's fading insides churn.

But Pacifica continued blinking, desperate for any colour asides black. She couldn't even see the tip of her nose. How much time had passed? Pacifica honestly didn't know.

Then, after what felt like a thousand years or a single heartbeat, the empty darkness around her began to take shape. At first it was just dark shades of grey, lining jagged peaks and strands that came out of what Pacifica thought was the ground. Everything began to take shape, slowly but surely.

Then the colour began to flood in, like wisps of magic or splatters of paint in reverse. The grass became green- eventually tinged with maroon. The pines in the distance took on a very dark colour that hinged between red and green. Orange flooded the sky above, and clouds the colour of human's blood danced around in a circle.

Pacifica blinked a few more times, completely convinced that she had gone colourblind. She sat up, so quickly that even she herself was surprised. Shouldn't she be exhausted after the attack? Apparently not.

The hill she sat on was naked of trees, overgrown with long grass and heather and bramble, growing over each other like chaos. The forest below looked like the one belonging to Gravity Falls- scratch that- it was the Gravity Falls forest. Just... the trees were tinted a funny colour and between them was only darkness.

A gust of wind pulled at Pacifica's blonde hair, so she had to brush the stray wicks out of her face and pull them back behind her ear. Pacifica heaved herself up to her feet to get a better look.

She could see all the way to the horizon, and even further above the treetops. Every cloud had a detail that she could make out, and her ears picked up every whisper of wind and every rustle of the tangled plants.

What was this place?

Another gust of wind blew past her, but this time a shiver went through her. The scent the breeze carried caused Pacifica to lift her head to hear the presence in the wind. It was somehow familiar to her, yet at the same time so alien. Her head turned absent-mindedly along the scent like in some cartoon, and her eyes set upon the creature standing there.

It was a floating triangle who, apart from his black limbs and accessories and single eye, was shining golden from head to toe. Could you even use the expression 'from head to toe' with this creature? He looked like the Eye of Providence on the dollar bills, just dressed up in a fancy top-hat and a bow-tie.

"Who are you?" Pacifica whispered to him, but she already knew the answer. That sunflower-yellow colour was a dead giveaway.

The floating shape shook his head... somehow. "You know, don't you? I'm Bill Cipher, and I promise that this is my real form."

Pacifica knew this revelation was coming, but somehow it still came as a shock to her. Automatically she took a step back away from him, eyeing his every move. Like an animal deciding whether to fight or flight, Pacifica tensed instantly, ready for either.

"This is the Dreamscape," Bill explained, waving a hand towards the woodland. "It's not half-bad, is it?"

"I guess," Pacifica mumbled. There were questions biting at her from every direction. "Why did you bring me here?"

At first Bill didn't answer, but instead floated up to hover beside her. "Well, where else would you learn about our kind? Hardly anybody knows about us, and the author of Pine Tree's journal only knows a mere quarter of the truth."

"Couldn't you have just told me?"

"Some things need to be shown, not told," Bill said simply. "And I guess I owe you a full explanation after keeping you in the dark for so long. You are now at an age where your power is strengthening, and you need to take control of it before it takes control of you. But I guess I also wanted you to return to me after so many years."

"RETURN TO YOU!?" Pacifica raised her voice. She hesitated, remembering that it wasn't lady-like to shout, but now she couldn't care less. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?"

But Bill just chuckled. Like a balloon of helium, he floated round to face Pacifica fully. "Calm down Llama dear, I'll get to that point eventually. Right now-"

"Why do you call me llama?" Pacifica cut across him. There was something about Bill that didn't sit right with her. Why was he so desperate to get her back? He went as far as to nearly kill four people for crying out loud!

Bill blinked. "Llama? Why would I ever call you that?"

Pacifica's anger melted away like mist in the morning. "You called me llama..."

"Oh!" The triangle chuckled again. "No, no, not 'Llama'. I'm calling you by your demon name- your proper name. Your name is Lula."

"Lula?" Pacifica echoed quietly. She thought for a moment.

Bill called it her 'proper name'- but was it really? She was always Pacifica Northwest, hope and heir to the Northwest legacy, not a nobody like this so-called 'Lula'. That was not who she was.

"I'm sorry, but that's not my name. My name is Pacifica Northwest, it always has been."

The dream demon looked disappointed. Pacifica never thought a beast of the forest could ever express emotion. To her, they were just predators worse than common bears or wolves or mountain lions. "You had been Lula for longer than you remember. To me you'll always be Lula no matter what you tell yourself."

Pacifica wanted to argue, but held back her words. Judging from the previous events, going the 'hard-way' with Bill Cipher was a really horrible idea, so best stay calm for now.

"I know your human name means a heck of a lot to you my dear," Bill explained gently. "But here in the Dreamscape you don't have to be a human anymore, so you can get rid of your name and your disguise."

"I'm good thanks," Pacifica refused politely. "But you can call me whatever you want," she added quickly in fear of angering this stranger. A few moments of silence passed between them where Pacifica was desperately trying to decide what question to ask next. "Is my horse okay?" she settled on the most important question.

"Ah, the mare?" Bill nodded his head. "I pulled her in too, since she means a lot to you. Yarrow can be your first henchmaniac!"

"My hench-what?"

"Henchmaniac," Bill repeated but still Pacifica didn't know what he was on about. "Listen, us demons are natural leaders, it's in our instinct. Take me for example, I lead a small band of interdimensional outlaws I've named my henchmaniacs. Even you became a leader without me telling you so, you've become that horse's mistress."

"But that's normal."

"Of course it is!"

Pacifica forced herself to hold Bill's gaze, searching that big eye for answers she still desperately needed. Yet somehow, all she saw in the demon's eye was relief and sense of happiness. What can he see in my eyes? Pacifica wondered. "Where is she?"

Bill shrugged his shoulders and flew a quick loop around her. "She's under good care of my own henchmaniacs dear. Would you like to meet them?"

"Sure..."

"That's brilliant then! Follow me!"

As Bill lead the way down the hill, Pacifica suddenly felt light-footed. It was then that she realised that she wasn't walking at all, instead hovering lowly above the ground with slightly bend knees. The shock in her chest caused her to slam her feet into the ground and stand stubbornly on the ground. For some reason it was actually more difficult to monitor every step on the meaningless earth, and after a while Pacifica gave in and tucked in her legs to allow herself to hover. It was very weird how this was all very... natural to her, as if she already knew what to do. She just hoped that most of her other unexplained quirks could also be explained by demonic biology.

"You've already handled hovering I see?" Bill remarked suddenly, not even turning around to look at her. "And I have to say that your first deal was absolutely remarkable! I'm so proud!"

Pacifica stopped for a moment. "You knew about that?" She stared at her hands, trying to imagine them engulfed in green fire as on that night she struck an accidental deal with Stan Pines. "I had to have some way of keeping my secret..."

"And that's what's great about it!" he finally turned around to face her. He had that proud parent-like gaze on his face, one that Pacifica mostly saw in other parents' faces, rarely her own. Bill's proud expression filled her with a warm feeling from her head to toe. It made her feel accepted.

Nowhere before had she felt so... secure. It was as if she did in fact belong here. In her home she was uncomfortable, treated like a butler and made to come at the ring of a bell. The Mystery Shack was a little better, though only Dipper and Mabel were fully acceptant of her, the rest still gazed at her uneasily- especially Stan. Here... Bill encouraged her with genuine words.

"Thanks I guess..." she muttered.

"You have so much to learn Lula!" he exclaimed with a comforting hand on her shoulder. "About our kind, about yourself, about our past-"

"Past?"

"Well, you have to know how you ended up in that blackberry bush, don't you?" Bill pointed out. "But for now let's see that horse of yours. I did tell my henchmaniacs to treat her well and as one of their own."

Somehow Pacifica knew that 'well' and 'one of their own' were two different things. The thought made her shiver.

"Are you sure that Yarrow is alright?" Pacifica asked again, using a foot to push off the ground to hover side by side with Bill. "She's not going to be very hurt, is she?"

Bill's eye sparkled. "This is the Dreamscape, my dear. We can't feel pain here."

They had reached the trees, where a sheet of black stretched between them like a curtain of black ink. Bill reached out and touched the wall of black, sending ripples through it like a huge vertical pool.

"Come on Lula, you want to see your Yarrow?"

Pacifica nodded her head. So Bill took her hand ever so gently, as if it would shatter between his four fingers at any moment, and placed it softly on the black curtain. It sent tiny jolts through her hand like pins and needles, blood fizzing just under her skin.

"What are we gonna do?"

Bill's eye seemed to smile at her. "The Dreamscape is split up into many parts Lula. It mirrors the real world, but there are certain blind-spots which we cannot travel through. Right now I want to show you is the place where this atmosphere is weakest, where we first came into this world." He closed his eye. "Close your eyes Lula."

Pacifica obliged, succumbing into darkness.

"You do know the town?"

"Yes."

Bill chuckled. "It is not named Gravity Falls to our kind. It is named the Devil's Backbone."

"Devil's Backbone?"

"I want you to imagine the Devil's Backbone, in full day as you saw it in the real world."

So Pacifica followed his instructions, and she could see Gravity Falls' town centre in her mind's eye. The colourful shops beckoning the people to come closer and buy their things, the grand museum which up until this point was as idle as a sleeping sloth, the statue of the town founder great and tall with a puffed out chest.

"Open your eyes."

Pacifica was half-expecting to be back in the town, the blue sky heavily contrasting the green tips of the trees and the townsfolk going about their day paying her all their attention. But no. Before her was still the same black wall, rippling where she touched it. She shouldn't've been surprised, she didn't have complete control yet, but still it was disappointing.

"Turn around Lula, you're missing out."

Oh.

OH.

After she'd turned round, she saw. It was still Gravity Falls, yet... so different. The buildings at her left and right glowed like fireflies, the road was half-destroyed and huge inhuman black creatures flew about in the amber sky, playing in the red clouds. Instead of normal things like food or clothes or the such, the shops sold gizmos Pacifica had never seen before. And of the townsfolk, it was not people, but the most distorted creatures that roamed the streets. And the statue which Pacifica was taught to give pledge to her entire life was gone, replaced with Bill Cipher instead in the same position. Grand and great and looking towards the sky.

"Welcome Lula."

Pacifica didn't pay Bill any attention, absent-mindedly drifting forward to step onto the concrete, making sure stepping on the pavement still had the same feeling as it did when she still believed she was human. The tap of her designer shoe still sounded the same, except it echoed as if Gravity Falls- no, _The Devil's Backbone_ was really a huge tunnel.

"Is this where I came from?" Pacifica wondered, looking up at what used to be the Laser Tag Arena, which was now a very odd-looking place which she could only assume was a restaurant.

"No," Bill replied, making Pacifica realise that she had spoken out loud. "This is where the Earthen demons originate from, like 8-Ball over here!" He pointed to a goblin-like green monster behind the glass in the restaurant-looking place. The monster's 8-ball eyes shined with a horrible golden glow. He seemed to be engaged in whatever he was eating, his long ears fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. Bill grimaced at the disgusting sight before turning back to the former human. "This is a gathering place for every demon across the cosmos, from the same or different dimensions. Where we come from is a lot more... complicated. Don't worry, I'll show you in time. Right now we've got to find your dear old horse." He floated down the street before turning back and gesturing for Pacifica to come with him.

* * *

The more time Pacifica spent in The Devil's Backbone, the more she thought of Gravity Falls. She kept having to remind herself that they were in fact the same place, yet it was so different than her beloved town, but somehow the same. It was all so confusing.

Bill however seemed to know where he was going. Around the streets she thought she knew, past the buildings she thought she had memorised. Everything was changed.

In a few moments they reached what used to be driveway to the Northwest Mansion back in the real world, which in the demon world did not exist. Her home was gone in this world, replaced with only a back border. The concrete had ended, but neither Bill or Pacifica cared, why should they when they were hovering over the ground? Instead the ground was a chaos of brambles, thorns and fruitless blackberry bushes growing over each other.

There was a gang of demons herded here, crowded around something that Pacifica couldn't yet see. One of them broke away from the crowd, padding up to Bill unevenly, chattering from the right to the left on unsteady feet. How did he see when all he was, was a walking pair of dentures?

"The mare is about to undergo her transformation, sir," he reported.

"She's about to what!?" Pacifica's nonexistent heart gave a jolt of panic. "Will Yarrow be alright!?"

As if in reply, a shrill cry of help neighed out from the middle of the crowd, calling out for her mistress. Pacifica pushed off the overgrown ground and darted between a cyan keyhole monster and a tall pink lady to the downed horse. She fell to her knees by her steed's side, her gentle hands stroking the brown pelt steadily. "Shh, it's going to be okay. I'm here."

The horse's body was spasming, unrhythmically taking breaths through her nose. Every strand of fur stood on end, and it was cold with sweat. Pacifica felt a hand drop on her shoulder.

"It's best if you back away Lula," Bill said softly. "Transformations aren't always pretty."

"What's happening to her?" Pacifica demanded.

Bill helped her stand. "Your horse is a non-demon, so entering the Dreamscape will have serious consequences. The atmosphere is altering her genes, and turning her into a Ferus."

"A what?"

"Feri are-" the pair of dentures piped up before Bill gave him a stern glare to shut up.

"Feri are half-demons," Bill explained calmly. "Creatures that humans call 'monsters'."

"But aren't we monsters?"

"The more general term you're looking for is 'Beast of the Forest'."

 _I'm a beast of the forest, that's all I know_. Pacifica's eyes widened, recalling what she said to Mabel just a few days before.

She had subconsciously known all along.

The horse suddenly stood to her hooves, shifting all attention back to her. The demons around stepped back, waiting in anxiety for something to happen.

Then silence.

For a while the earthen creature stood there, rigid still as if she was a still statue stripped of any life. Even her breathing ceased to be. A moment, two, three, passed. Still nothing.

"Yarrow-"

The horse reared up so she was twice her height, letting out one thunderous neigh that seemed to shake the entire town. Her hooves lashed, her blunt teeth bared against the world. A pair of long bones burst from the horse's back, scarlet with blood as they sprouted outwards, growing from matter that wasn't even there until they were twice as long as the horse was herself.

Pacifica cursed in surprise, falling back into Bill to get away from the horrifying thing. However she was unable to look away, no matter how disgusting the sight was.

Muscles encased the bones, from which brown feathers grew. It reminded Pacifica of those sped-up clips that were always used in documentaries, but those were mostly of the sky or of plant growth, never of an animal.

The whole transformation took a small while, but once it was over, silence gripped the Devil's Backbone once more. The mare stood there, panting, mostly as she was before, except for one key difference.

There was a pair of magnificent wings sprouting from her back, more feathered than any bird's. Each feather was the colour of mud, at least in the real world, and each feather was tipped with dark, clotted blood and ichor.

"Yarrow! Yarrow!" Pacifica leapt forward, catching her steed around the neck in a hug. "Thank goodness you're alright! You're one of us now! A Beast of the Forest."

Her horse rubbed her long face against her mistress' shoulder, mumbling something in her usual animal gibberish.

"Yes I know it was strange," the girl agreed. "But please, look on the bright side, you're a Beast of the Forest, a mighty Ferus not even the Pines have seen! You're like me now!"

"It's so strange how calmly you talk to her," the giant pink demon pointed out. "You're so soft on her."

"Back off Pyronica, your job is done here," Bill hissed at her, snapping his fingers as if he wanted her to disintegrate. "Perhaps you could show... uh... Yarrow the way to the place where she will be staying? I have to talk with Lula alone."

"Can't Yarrow stay with me?" Pacifica piped up again. "She's been through a lot, and I really need to be with her right now."

"Yarrow can rest in the same place you'll be staying," Bill insisted. "She still needs to sleep, after all. You'll be back before she wakes up, I promise."

A harsh whinny of protest scraped past the horse's throat, but Pacifica shook her head. "You're not fine, you need to rest."

Yarrow pounded the ground with her hooves and tossed her head in denial.

"You've just had two wings burst out of you," Pacifica pointed out, and Yarrow bobbed her head in a reluctant ' _I'll give you that_ '.

"If you can't trust the others, trust me. You can do that can't you?"

The massive mare nodded her head, then looked the pink lady- Pyronica did Bill say her name was? She held out a white flaming hand welcomingly, her single eye blinked into what one could only assume was a wink, yet her two massive horns caught the amber sunlight like two huge razors. Yarrow cautiously stepped towards her, then started to pad at her side, looking back at her mistress before finally Pyronica lead her back between the buildings.

"She's going to be alright, isn't she?" Pacifica turned to Bill, noticing how all the other crowded demons had already disbanded, going their separate directions- some disappearing into the black wall, others heading back to the Gravity- the Devil's Backbone.

Bill snapped out of his thoughts. "Wha? Oh yeah, sure, sure." He turned slightly away so Pacifica couldn't look into his massive eye.

"What do you want to tell me?"

Bill shook his head- somehow, did he really have a head? Instead he lead her to the wall of black, and touched it again. This time Pacifica did not need guidance and placed a flat palm to the strange sheet by herself.

"Where are we going?"

"To our original dimension."

* * *

There was a knock on the Mystery Shack door. A welcome knock, rapity rap rap. It echoed around the destroyed corridors of the broken attraction, drilling into Mabel's distracted head.

It was merely a few hours after the attack of the demon shadow, yet it seemed like so long ago when Pacifica had lead the monster into the darkness between the trees. It seemed like a million years since she had been laughing with the blonde, carefree as they should be.

Perhaps this knock was from her? Perhaps she really managed to outrun Bill Cipher's shadow and get him lost in the woods, and she was once again here. The thought lifted Mabel's spirit like a balloon on helium.

"I'll get it!" she shrieked excitedly before anyone else had the time to process what happened. This was it! She was going to finally see her friend after so long! Mabel could already see her, the blonde hair shining with twigs and leaves after her perilous journey, a wide smile of accomplishment on her face and a twinkle of excitement in her big blue eyes.

Mabel could see the scene so clearly in her mind, and it was as if she really could feel the coldness of Pacifica as she wrapped her arms around her in a hug, her soft smell soothing the stink of the ripped apart wood and mould.

Mabel's hopes were way, way up when she opened that door, but they were instantly crushed down, as if her hope had been a mighty tall building that just had a wrecking ball slammed into its side.

The woman was tall, long pale brown hair drifting behind her as did the expensive minty-coloured designer dress. There was so much make-up on her face it genuinely looked like she was a plastic Barbie doll instead of an actual human person, her eyes dusted with the same cyan as her dress, while the eyes themselves were so wide they resembled minuscule bicycle wheels. For a moment Mabel thought this was a faerie from Dipper's Journal.

"My daughter," the woman's voice came like broken glass, as if she was trying to use whatever vocal cords she had left after someone had violently torn them out of her throat. "Where is my daughter?"

It took Mabel a while to recognise who this was.

"I..." she stalled for an answer, not knowing if she should tell the truth, sugarcoat it or downright lie to this distressed mother. "I don't..."

"She's here," Priscilla rasped. "I know she is. Where else would she run off to?" Her distress seemed to grow when Mabel looked at the ground.

 _You've got to answer Mabel_ , she told herself forcefully, forcing herself to raise her head to look at Priscilla again.

But now that she looked again, she saw how the woman was not perfect after all. She saw how her dark mascara was smudged around her eyes, and how her hair stuck to her temples in sweat. And the gaze that twitched her smooth facial features was infested with terror. Terror which seemed to enter Mabel's being and fill her like water fills a bucket- fast and unstoppable.

"Please Miss Pines," Mrs. Northwest said. "Tell me that my daughter is here."

Her tone was awfully familiar to Mabel- it was what her mother sounded like when Dipper wandered off god knew where and wasn't back when he was supposed to be. Priscilla's frightened glare and quivering voice was almost identical to that of Mabel's own mother.

And coincidentally it also worked as the same sort of truth-drug, dragging the very truth out of Mabel the longer she listened.

"She's not here," she whispered, the words hardly able to make it past her throat. "She went out into the woods... and still hasn't come back. I... I don't know where she is."

Even though the contour made it difficult to tell, Mabel was sure all the colour had drained out of Priscilla's face. The faerie-looking woman went rigid in shock, as if her bones had locked in place. Mabel rushed to apologise, but even if she could move, Priscilla was faster.

The proud Northwest woman had taken Mabel's left hand in both of hers, clutching it tightly, and fell loudly to her knees before her, without a single second thought about her dress. She had pressed the three hands to her bowed forehead, gently yet firmly holding the girl's hand. "Please," the mother begged. "Please Miss Pines, help me find my daughter. She is worth to me more than the rotted mansion itself, she is worth a million times more." She raised her head so that her wide eyes met Mabel's. "Please, I'm begging you. I'll do anything to get my dear little girl back, even if it means selling my soul to the devil himself. I'll pay you whatever you want Miss Pines, just please... help me find Pacifica."

Mabel just stood there, dumbfounded, unable to say a word. Just the sight of one of the most powerful, most beautiful women on her knees before her, begging her for help was enough to make anyone freeze on the spot. What was she to say?

"I don't want any money," she said honestly. "I don't want anything of yours. But I'll help you. Pacifica's my friend too, you know."

Priscilla lowered her head again, breathing a sigh of gratitude. "Thank you Miss Pines, I will always be in dept to you if we find her. May we go look for her now?"

Looking back into the shack, Mabel made sure nobody was looking. She then nodded her head surely. "Yes. Let's go." _Pacifica may still be alive if Bill hadn't caught her,_ she added in her mind sombrely, deciding that mentioning the demon's shadow to this distraught mother was not the best idea.

* * *

When the world came to view before them, the two demons hung speechless, looking out into the stretched landscape before them. They could see that this had once been a great city- a cluster of buildings still stood, tall beyond anything Pacifica had ever imagined. It was much bigger than any of the human towns Pacifica had visited, yet it was nothing more than husks of buildings, their windows only holes.

All else was barren wasteland, like those depicted in post-apocalyptic movies, yet much, much more realistic. Earth and sand and dust had swept over the ruins that had fallen to the ground. There was no plants, no breath of life in any direction, even the sky was an ugly shade of grey. Pacifica herself held more colour than the entirety of this monochrome world. This couldn't even be called a dimension anymore- it was the ghost of a world.

"This is it," Bill announced after a little while. Even he- the one that had been unshockable from the moment Pacifica had met him- seemed shaken upon the sight.

'It' was nothing more than a painful memory- to Bill. But to Pacifica, it was nothing but a horrible, unfamiliar landscape.

And yet the destruction was still going. There was a pile of rubble not too far off, and slowly the stones were dissolving into dust that blew away in the wind. There was a twisting feeling in Pacifica's gut, and she tried to suppress it by tapping the tip of her foot to the grassless earth, but recoiled once she realised that it was just like a dry, tasteless and out-of-date British biscuit.

"What happened here?" she whispered, partly to herself, partly to the triangle next to her.

Bill's answer was a single word. "War."

War.

Pacifica exhaled a sharp breath and lifted her gaze to the horizon, where a faded outline of a saturn-like ringed moon hung close to the planet, and yet it too was half-destroyed. It must've been one terrible war if half of the moon was gone.

"It used to be beautiful," said Bill. There was a tremor in his voice, and there were tears in his single eye. "I know it was destroyed, but I forgot that the damage was this bad."

When she closed her eyes, she seemed to hear the voices, shouts and screams and sobbing- and see flashes of bright orange-red fire licking at the city like devil's fingers.

A whimper escaped from her. She couldn't help it, feeling so afraid. Then she heard Bill's voice speak again. "This isn't what I wanted to show you, Lula. Our destination is a little further out into what used to be the countryside."

"What do you want to show me?" Pacifica questioned, finally taring her gaze away from the city corpse.

"You'll see."

So they drifted away from the city, and Pacifica tried her very best not to look back. It wasn't as if looking at the rest of the world was much better.

And in a while they reached a cottage, or what used to be a cottage at least. Charred, black ruins was all that was left of it now, clearly destroyed by fire. The garden was obviously once a home for many plants, but like with everything in this world there was hardly anything left.

The glowing golden triangle floated up to the ruins, leaving behind a wobbling aura behind him, and landed on the lowest wall that still stood. "We're here."

Pacifica landed on the ground beside him. "And what is 'here' exactly?"

Bill waved his hand slightly to gesture the entirety of the ruins. "This is the cottage belonging to your mother," he told her. "The place where you were born."

Pacifica stopped. "What?"

This was the place where she had first taken her first breath, and the curiosity had gripped her chest. When she was young, Pacifica had wondered where she had come from, and who had actually given birth to her. But years of Northwest legacy hammered into her head and the constant reminder that she was Preston and Priscilla's daughter made her disregard those questions completely. Now though, there was nothing that could hold back the need for answers.

Pacifica found herself moving forward, trying to make out the general layout of the cottage from the trail of rubble. She tried to remember, but she couldn't. She couldn't imagine the cottage in its full glory, the maybe-straw roof and the cute glass windows, or something along those lines. It was between the memories that were truly forgotten, the ones she hadn't even realised she'd lost, and could never get back.

"You know, Bill," she said suddenly. "All my life I thought I was a monster, a Ferus from the forest that surrounded Gravity Falls. I never knew if I had a biological family or if I was just an orphan. I never knew anything about myself, so I tried to be human the best I could."

Even though she didn't look back, she could feel Bill's eye on her, watching.

"Who was my mother?" she asked.

Bill took a while to answer. "She was named Jill, and she was one of the most powerful demons originating from here. In fact, most of the all-powerful beings came from here, but that's beside the point."

"What was she like?"

"Loving," said Bill. "Unusually so for such a powerful demon, but I wasn't, isn't and will not be complaining."

 _Loving_. That word rang around in Pacifica's head, and suddenly she wondered what she would've been like if she had been raised by Jill instead of Priscilla. Kinder, sweeter, happier, maybe?

"And my father?"

"Dream demons don't have fathers," Bill explained shortly.

"Oh."

Pacifica turned to look back at the yellow triangle in question, trying to decide what to ask him next. There was so much she wanted to ask, more about herself, more about this place, more about their kind. More about Jill.

"You know what?" said Bill suddenly. "I think I can show you what ou- your mother looked like. It's just a wink of a memory, but I'll do my best."

He floated up to Pacifica's eye level, and before she could react, his cold four-fingered was on her forehead, and the destroyed cottage disappeared into nothingness.

The image was still like a photograph, yet in the biggest detail Pacifica had ever seen. It was the cottage, before it had been destroyed. The wallpaper was pale, and hanging photographs decorated it along with green curtains. It looked like a perfectly normal human house, with the same type of wooded furniture.

In the centre there stood another triangle demon, this time as red as flames. Like Bill and Pacifica, she had a bow-tie and a top hat, but hers were more elegant and lady-like. Jill was absolutely beautiful, as beautiful as an equilateral triangle could get, maybe even more.

In her two black arms she held yet another one-eyed triangular demon, one that was coloured a scarily familiar orange. Pacifica took a while to realise that this in fact was herself, before Earth's dimension had altered her appearance. She looked happy, her single eye laughing.

But they were not alone. There was a third demon, one she recognised immediately. He sat on Jill's shoulders in a piggy back, his hands raised in the air as he squealed in silent happiness. His colour was bright yellow.

The image melted away, and Pacifica was back in the ruined cottage. This time she could imagine the walls where the should be, the pale walls radiant and highlighting her mother's beauty.

But all those thoughts had evaporated from her mind as she looked at Bill in horror. He hadn't changed much since the memory, yet he undeniably was younger then than now. There was a tic of recognition in his big, emotional eye, and it seemed to smile.

That was the moment Pacifica realised.

"You're my brother."

* * *

There was a crowd gathering in the streets of the Devil's Backbone, demons of all shapes and sizes crawling out of their homes to see what all the fuss was about.

Yarrow had just began to drift off, when suddenly Pyronica snapped her head up to attention. She walked out of the dark room and to the balcony. Yarrow called after her.

"Something's happening," replied the pink lady, opening the two doors into the open and flung herself outside. The horse could hear her gasp, and decided that maybe getting sleep wasn't the best thing for her after all.

So the mare pushed herself up onto her hooves, unbalanced by the massive wings sprouting from her back. Clip-clopping across the large dark room Yarrow slowly made her way to the shining balcony where Pyronica stood still.

She didn't even need to ask what was going on, she could only watch and everything would be explained.

It was that yellow triangle demon, basking in the gaze of the other demons gladly, as if he were feeding on the energy. He looked so happy, gleeful almost.

Beside him strolled the most human-looking creature in the entirety of the demon world, a creature which Yarrow did not recognise at first.

Ragged orange hair the colour of a setting sun drifted behind the creature as she walked forward, dressed in a tailored amber tuxedo with a large black bow-tie. The top hat drifted slightly above her head, and the crooked cane was held in her left hand, the darkened skin making the cat-like orange eyes shine even brighter.

Bill whispered something in her ear, and even from a distance Yarrow could see the creature nod her head. The entirety of the Devil's Backbone was silent, and the creature's footsteps echoed loudly through the buildings. She was walking alone now, the golden triangular demon melted back into the watching crowds.

The creature raised a single hand above her head, outstretching all four fingers as far from each other as they'd go.

 _Krak-BOOM._

The strike of lightening came from nowhere, striking the creature's outstretched hand and setting it alight with bright green fire.

"My name is Lula Cipher."


End file.
